Modulation of intrinsic resting-state fMRI networks in women with chronic migraine

Objective: To evaluate the intrinsic resting functional connectivity of the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), and central executive network (CEN) network in women with chronic migraine (CM), and whether clinical features are associated with such abnormalities. Methods: We analyzed resting-state connectivity in 29 women with CM as compared to age- and sex-matched controls. Relationships between clinical characteristics and changes in targeted networks connectivity were evaluated using a multivariate linear regression model. Results: All 3 major intrinsic brain networks were less coherent in CM (DMN: p = 0.030, SN: p = 0.007, CEN: p = 0.002) as compared to controls. When stratified based on medication overuse headache (MOH) status, CM without MOH (DMN: p = 0.029, SN: p = 0.023, CEN: p = 0.003) and CM with MOH (DMN: p = 0.016, SN: p = 0.016, CEN: p = 0.015) were also less coherent as compared to controls. There was no difference in CM with MOH as compared to CM without MOH (DMN: p = 0.382, SN: p = 0.408, CEN: p = 0.419). The frequency of moderate and severe headache days was associated with decreased connectivity in SN (p = 0.003) and CEN (p = 0.015), while cutaneous allodynia was associated with increased connectivity in SN (p = 0.011). Conclusions: Our results demonstrated decreased overall resting-state functional connectivity of the 3 major intrinsic brain networks in women with CM, and these patterns were associated with frequency of moderate to severe headache and cutaneous allodynia.