• Hyeong Cheol Moon, Chan-A Park, Yeong-Jae Jeon, Soon Tae You, Hyun Man Baek, Youn Joo Lee, Chul Beom Cho, Chae Joon Cheong, and Young Seok Park.
• Department of Medical Neuroscience and Neurosurgery, College of Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Republic of Korea.
• Magn Reson Imaging. 2018 Sep 1; 51: 144-150.

AbstractThe cingulate cortex (CC) is a brain region that plays a key role in pain processing, but CC abnormalities are not unclear in patients with trigeminal neuralgia (TN). The purpose of this study was to determine the central causal mechanisms of TN and the surrounding brain structure in healthy controls and patients with TN using 7 Tesla (T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Whole-brain parcellation in gray matter volume and thickness was assessed in 15 patients with TN and 16 healthy controls matched for sex, age, and regional variability using T1-weighted imaging. Regions of interest (ROIs) were measured in rostral anterior CC (rACC), caudal anterior CC (cACC) and posterior CC (PCC). We also investigated associations between gray matter volume or thickness and clinical symptoms, such as pain duration, Barrow Neurologic Institute (BNI) scores, offender vessel, and medications, in patients with TN. The cACC and PCC exhibited gray matter atrophy and reduced thickness between the TN and control groups. However, the rACC did not. Cortical volumes were negatively correlated with pain duration in transverse and inferior temporal areas, and thickness was also negatively correlated with pain duration in superior frontal and parietal areas. The cACC and PCC gray matter atrophy occurred in the patients with TN, and pain duration was associated with frontal, parietal, and temporal cortical regions. These results suggest that the cACC, PCC but not the rACC are associated with central pain mechanisms in TN.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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