Zhongguo quanke yixue (Nov 2022)
Spontaneous Brain Activities in Hyperthyroidism Patients Assessed Using Fractional Amplitude of Low-frequency Fluctuation
Abstract
Background Hyperthyroidism is a common endocrine psychosomatic disease, which is often accompanied by negative emotions, seriously affecting the prognosis of patients. Moreover, it is associated with more than 5 times more higher risk of committing suicide. Therefore, it has certain clinical and social significance to explore the neuroimaging characteristics of brain damage in patients with hyperthyroidism. Objective To analyze the abnormal patterns of spontaneous brain activity measured by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) , and the neuroimaging characteristics of brain damage in patients with hyperthyroidism. Methods Participants were recruited from December 2014 to June 2016, including 25 hyperthyroidism outpatients with 131I therapy from Xinxiang Central Hospital, and 28 sex-, age-, and education level-matched healthy volunteers from the same hospital and the community near the hospital. Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) was used to assess the mental health. rs-fMRI was performed to measure the fractional fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) to reflect local spontaneous brain activity. Correlations of the mean fALFF (mfALFF) and with clinical variables and psychological symptoms were analyzed. Results Hyperthyroidism patients had higher mean scores of anxiety and anger-hostility than controls (P<0.05) . Hyperthyroidism patients had higher mean mfALFF values in the right cerebellar vermis region 7 (MNI: 3, -75, -27; t=4.381) , left thalamus (MNI: -6, -6, 0; t=3.545) , and right thalamus (MNI: 6, -3, 3; t=4.356) , and lower mean mfALFF values in the left posterior cerebellar lobe (MNI: -39, -81, -27; t=-3.402) , left orbital middle frontal gyrus (MNI: -9, 57, 0; t=-5.253) and left inferior frontal gyrus (MNI: -51, 15, 18; t=-3.747) . Correlation analysis showed that the mfALFF value of right cerebellar vermis region 7 was negatively correlated with the score of anxiety (r=-0.419, P=0.037) or anger-hostility (r=-0.402, P=0.046) . Conclusion The abnormal spontaneous activity in the right cerebellar vermis may be an important imaging marker of brain damage in hyperthyroidism, and may be imaging evidence for the studying of neuropathological mechanism of negative emotion in hyperthyroidism.
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