Dynamic alterations of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations in patients with chronic neck pain

Background The pathogenesis of neck pain in the brain, which is the fourth most common cause of disability, remains unclear. Furthermore, little is known about the characteristics of dynamic local functional brain activity in cervical pain. Objective The present study aimed to investigate the changes of local brain activity caused by chronic neck pain and the factors leading to neck pain. Methods Using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) method combined with sliding window approach, we compared local brain activity that was measured by the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of 107 patients with chronic neck pain (CNP) with that of 57 healthy control participants. Five pathogenic factors were selected for correlation analysis. Results The group comparison results of dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (dALFF) variability showed that patients with CNP exhibited decreased dALFF variability in the left inferior temporal gyrus, the middle temporal gyrus, the angular gyrus, the inferior parietal marginal angular gyrus, and the middle occipital gyrus. The abnormal dALFF variability of the left inferior temporal gyrus was negatively correlated with the average daily working hours of patients with neck pain. Conclusions The findings indicated that the brain regions of patients with CNP responsible for audition, vision, memory, and emotion were subjected to temporal variability of abnormal regional brain activity. Moreover, the dALFF variability in the left inferior temporal gyrus might be a risk factor for neck pain. This study revealed the brain dysfunction of patients with CNP from the perspective of dynamic local brain activity, and highlighted the important role of dALFF variability in understanding the neural mechanism of CNP.