• Yanliang Mei, Dong Qiu, Zhonghua Xiong, Xiaoshuang Li, Peng Zhang, Mantian Zhang, Xue Zhang, Yaqing Zhang, Xueying Yu, Zhaoli Ge, Zhe Wang, Binbin Sui, Yonggang Wang, and Hefei Tang.
• Headache Center, Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
• J Headache Pain. 2024 Nov 25; 25 (1): 204204.

ObjectiveTo delineate the structural connectome alterations in patients with chronic migraine (CM), episodic migraine (EM), and healthy controls (HCs).BackgroundThe pathogenesis of migraine chronification remains elusive, with structural brain network changes potentially playing a key role. However, there is a paucity of research employing graph theory analysis to explore changes in the whole brain structural networks in patients with CM and EM.MethodsThe individual structural brain connectome of 60 patients with CM, 34 patients with EM, and 39 healthy control participants were constructed by using deterministic diffusion-tensor tractography. Graph metrics including global efficiency, characteristic path length, local efficiency, clustering coefficient, and small-world parameters were evaluated to describe the topologic organization of the white matter structural networks. Additionally, nodal clustering coefficient and efficiency were considered to assess the regional characteristics of the brain connectome. A graph-based statistic was used to assess brain network properties across the groups.ResultsGraph theory analysis revealed significant disruptions in the structural brain networks of CM patients, characterized by reduced global efficiency, local efficiency, and increased characteristic path length compared to HCs. Additionally, CM patients exhibited significantly lower local efficiency than EM patients. Notably, the CM group demonstrated marked reductions in local clustering coefficient and nodal local efficiency in the frontal and temporal regions compared with the healthy control group and EM group. Nodal local efficiency can effectively distinguish CM from EM and HCs. Moreover, the disrupted topologic efficiency was significantly associated with attack frequency and MIDAS score in patients with migraine after Bonferroni correction.ConclusionDecreased structural connectivity in the frontal and temporal regions may serve as a neuroimaging marker for migraine chronification and disease progression, providing valuable insights into the pathophysiology of chronic migraine.© 2024. The Author(s).

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