Franklyn Arron Howe1, Olakunbi Harrison2, Thomas Richard Barrick1, and Nidhi Sofat2
1Neuroscience Research Centre, St George's, University of London, London, United Kingdom, 2Institute for Infection and Immunity, St George's, University of London, London, United Kingdom
Chronic pain from osteoarthritis (OA) may be aggravated by
“central sensitisation”, whereby pain-processing pathways become sensitised by
inflammatory and degenerative disease processes. 1H MRS was used to investigate
biochemical changes in pain processing brain areas of hand OA patients (n=32) compared
to controls (n=14). There were no differences between controls and patients in
the anterior cingulate gyrus, nor age related changes. In the insula cortex mI/Glx
correlated with the pain score (R2 = 0.52, p = 0.018) after
co-varying for age. High mI/Glx in the insula cortex was associated with high
pain and may reflect inflammatory effects or neurological changes.
