The sensorimotor network dysfunction in migraineurs without aura: a resting-state fMRI study

Migraine is a common recurrent neurological disorder combining nausea, vomiting, and hypersensitivities to visual, auditory, olfactory and somatosensory stimuli. However, the dysfunction of the sensorimotor network in migraineurs has not been well clarified. In the present study, we evaluated the dysfunction of the sensorimotor network in 30 migraineurs without aura and in 31 controls by combining regional homogeneity (ReHo), amplitudes of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and degree centrality (DC) analysis methods based on resting-state fMRI. A seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analysis was used to investigate whether the dysfunctional areas within the sensorimotor network exhibited abnormal FC with other brain areas. Compared to the controls, the migraineurs without aura exhibited significantly smaller ReHo, ALFF and DC values in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) and right premotor cortex (PMC). The migraineurs showed weaker FC between the S1 and brain areas within the pain intensity and spatial discrimination pathways and trigemino-thalamo-cortical nociceptive pathway. We proposed that the dysfunction of the S1 and PMC and the decreased FC between the S1 and brain areas in migraineurs without aura may disrupt the discrimination of sensory features of pain and affect nociception pathways, and would be involved in the dysfunctional mechanism in migraine.