Aman Ish Goyal1, Parina Gandhi1,
Yan Fang1, Lei Jiang1, Luo Ouyang1, Sandeep
Ganji1, David Buhner2, Wendy Ringe3,
Kaundinya Gopinath1,2, Richard Briggs1,2, Robert Haley2
1Department of Radiology, UT
Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 2Department
of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States;
3Department of Psychiatry, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas,
TX, United States
Previous
studies have shown higher cooling and warming thresholds in hands and feet of
Gulf War (GWI) veterans. In this study, brain activation to warm sensation stimuli
and hot pain stimuli was measured with a quantitative sensory testing (QST)
fMRI paradigm, in GWI veterans with Syndromes1 (Syn1), Syn2 and Syn3, as well
as age-matched controls. Syn2 and Syn1 groups exhibited significantly
decreased brain activation during warm sensation compared to controls. On the
other hand, Syn2 and Syn1 groups evoked significantly higher activation to
hot pain stimuli in a number of pain processing areas.