ArticleNeuroImage. Clinical2018
Neurotransmitter alterations in the anterior cingulate cortex in Crohn's disease patients with abdominal pain: A preliminary MR spectroscopy study.
Article in NeuroImage. Clinical, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mapping the neuroimaging landscape of inflammatory bowel disease: a bibliometric analysis and systematic scoping review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Shared and distinct spontaneous brain activity pattern in crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis: evidence from cortical surface‑based analysis.BMC gastroenterology · 2026Article
- Altered neurovascular coupling and associated neurotransmitter profiles in inflammatory bowel disease with distinct depressive symptoms.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2026Article
- Abnormal structural changes and disturbed functional connectivity in patients with Crohn's disease and abdominal pain: a voxel-based morphometry and functional magnetic resonance imaging study.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2025Article
- Elevated posterior insula glutamate in patients with sickle cell disease.The journal of pain · 2025Article
- Neurometabolic signatures of gastrointestinal symptoms in the insula of Crohn's disease patients: explorative findings from a 7T MRS study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Abdominal Pain in Inflammatory Bowel Disease-Epidemiology, Pathophysiology, and Management: A Narrative Review.Pain and therapy · 2024Review
- Brain imaging derived phenotypes: a biomarker for the onset of inflammatory bowel disease and a potential mediator of mental complications.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Article
- The role of neurotransmitters in mediating the relationship between brain alterations and depressive symptoms in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Abdominal Pain in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: An Evidence-Based, Multidisciplinary Review.Crohn's & colitis 360 · 2023Article
- The relationship between Central Nervous System morphometry changes and key symptoms in Crohn's disease.Brain imaging and behavior · 2023Article
- Amino acid profiles, disease activity, and protein intake in adult patients with Crohn's disease.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- Inflammatory bowel disease cross-sectional imaging: What's new?United European gastroenterology journal · 2022Review
- Altered mean apparent propagator-based microstructure and the corresponding functional connectivity of the parahippocampus and thalamus in Crohn's disease.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Neuroplasticity of Glioma Patients: Brain Structure and Topological Network.Frontiers in neurology · 2022Review
- Neurophysiological Effects of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex on the Exacerbation of Crohn's Disease: A Combined fMRI-MRS Study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Neurometabolite Levels and Relevance to Central Sensitization in Chronic Orofacial Pain Patients: A Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Study.Journal of pain research · 2022Article
- 3D magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging reveals links between brain metabolites and multidimensional pain features in fibromyalgia.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2021Article
- Changes in the anterior cingulate cortex in Crohn's disease: A neuroimaging perspective.Brain and behavior · 2021Review
- Altered thalamic neurotransmitters metabolism and functional connectivity during the development of chronic constriction injury induced neuropathic pain.Biological research · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeCrohn's disease (CD) has been known to cause both abdominal pain alongside functional and structural alterations in the central nervous system (CNS) in affected patients. This study seeks to determine the alternations of metabolites in the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of CD patients with abdominal pain by using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (
methodsSixteen CD patients with abdominal pain and 13 CD patients without abdominal pain, were recruited alongside 20 healthy controls (HCs) for this study. Clinical evaluations, including the 0-10 Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) of pain, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Crohn's Disease Activity Index (CDAI), were evaluated prior to MR scanning. This study selected the bilateral ACC as the region of interest (ROI). The metabolites of the bilateral ACC were quantitatively analyzed by LCModel and Gannet. A independent sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed for statistical analysis. Spearman correlation analyses were performed to examine the relationship between the metabolite levels and clinical evaluations.
resultsThe results indicated that CD patients with abdominal pain exhibited significantly higher levels of Glutamate (Glu)/(creatine + phosphocreatine, total creatine, tCr) over CD patients without abdominal pain, and HCs (p = 0.003, 0.009, respectively) in the bilateral ACC. The level of (Glutamate + Glutamine, Glx)/tCr of pain CD group was higher than non-pain CD group (p = 0.022). Moreover, within the pain CD group, Glu/tCr and Glx/tCr levels correlated strongly with the VAS scores of pain (ρ = 0.86, 0.59 respectively, p < 0.05). Meanwhile, the results indicates that CD patients with abdominal pain have significantly lower levels of γ-aminobutyric acid plus (GABA+)/tCr (p = 0.002) than HCs. To some extent, CDAI demonstrated a trend of negative correlation with GABA+/tCr levels (p = 0.088, ρ = -0.60).
conclusionThe neural mechanism of CD patients with abdominal pain in pain processing is tightly associated with neurochemical metabolites. An imbalance in Glu and GABA may play a key role in abdominal pain processing for patients with CD. This mechanism of pain may associate with the intestinal microbiota on the brain-gut axis.
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