Silke Kreitz1, Marina Sergejeva2, Andreas Hess3
1Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg , Erlangen, Germany; 2Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany; 3Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg,, Erlangen, Germany
The investigation of the neural basis of pain perception using modern neuroimaging techniques, such as functional MRI, has shown that nociceptive stimuli commonly elicit activity within a wide range of brain structures. In this study, we used functional MRI and graph theoretical network analysis methods to investigate the connectivity between mouse brain structures that are activated by thermal nociceptive and non nociceptive stimuli. The resulting stimulus specific interregional connectivity networks demonstrate the rebuilding of connections between brain structures during nocicpetive processing and give us a deeper insight into the functionality of the brain under pain.