iScience (Feb 2024)

Adolescents’ pain-related ontogeny shares a neural basis with adults’ chronic pain in basothalamo-cortical organization

  • Nils Jannik Heukamp,
  • Tobias Banaschewski,
  • Arun L.W. Bokde,
  • Sylvane Desrivières,
  • Antoine Grigis,
  • Hugh Garavan,
  • Penny Gowland,
  • Andreas Heinz,
  • Mina Kandić,
  • Rüdiger Brühl,
  • Jean-Luc Martinot,
  • Marie-Laure Paillère Martinot,
  • Eric Artiges,
  • Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos,
  • Herve Lemaitre,
  • Martin Löffler,
  • Luise Poustka,
  • Sarah Hohmann,
  • Sabina Millenet,
  • Juliane H. Fröhner,
  • Michael N. Smolka,
  • Katrin Usai,
  • Nilakshi Vaidya,
  • Henrik Walter,
  • Robert Whelan,
  • Gunter Schumann,
  • Herta Flor,
  • Frauke Nees

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 27, no. 2
p. 108954

Abstract

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Summary: During late adolescence, the brain undergoes ontogenic organization altering subcortical-cortical circuitry. This includes regions implicated in pain chronicity, and thus alterations in the adolescent ontogenic organization could predispose to pain chronicity in adulthood - however, evidence is lacking. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging from a large European longitudinal adolescent cohort and an adult cohort with and without chronic pain, we examined links between painful symptoms and brain connectivity. During late adolescence, thalamo-, caudate-, and red nucleus-cortical connectivity were positively and subthalamo-cortical connectivity negatively associated with painful symptoms. Thalamo-cortical connectivity, but also subthalamo-cortical connectivity, was increased in adults with chronic pain compared to healthy controls. Our results indicate a shared basis in basothalamo-cortical circuitries between adolescent painful symptomatology and adult pain chronicity, with the subthalamic pathway being differentially involved, potentially due to a hyperconnected thalamo-cortical pathway in chronic pain and ontogeny-driven organization. This can inform neuromodulation-based prevention and early intervention.

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