To characterize brain pathophysiology of the burning mouse syndrome - simultaneous brain structural and functional analyses using high field magnetic resonance imaging -

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K10330
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Radiation science
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Abe Osamu 東京大学, 医学部附属病院, 教授 (50302716)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: burning mouse syndrome / MR imaging / structural connectivity / voxel-based morphometry / SBM / functional connectivity

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Twenty-one burning mouse syndrome (BMS) patients who complain of pain of unknown cause in the palate, tongue, gingiva or pharynx and did not find any abnormality in blood test, culture, or pathological examination and 13 age- and sex-matched normal volunteers were enrolled in this project. High spatial resolution T1-weighted images and diffusion images were taken using a 3 Tesla MRI system launched in the University of Tokyo Hospital. First, every image was converted into niftii format and susceptibility- and eddy-current-induced distortion of diffusion images were corrected with topup and eddy_cuda, utilities of FSL. After brain segmentation and parcellation based on Desikan-Killiany Atlas using FreeSurfer, structural connectivity matrices for all subjects were created with MRTrix3. Graph theoretical analysis using Brain Connectivity Toolbox revealed significant decrease of clustering coefficient and degree in the anterior cingulate cortex included in pain matrix in BMS cases.

Free Research Field

放射線診断学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

これまで口腔内器質的疾患除外後には、自覚的症状からしか評価し得なかったBMSについて客観的診断指標を与え、疾患の治療効果も判定可能になる可能性を有する点が独創的で大きな意義を有する。またBMSに器質的脳異常が存在することを示すことで、社会におけるBMSの認知度を高め、BMS患者には治療によって異常部位が改善することが示せれば治療への動機付けになり、生活の質が上昇することにより社会生活への復帰、社会貢献も期待出来る点が意義深い。慢性疼痛との関連がこれまで示唆されている前部帯状回における異常検出が認められた点は本手法の妥当性を支持し、BMS以外の慢性疼痛への応用が期待できる。