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Fibromyalgia study "Aberrant Cerebral Blood Flow Responses During Cognition" (Montoro et al., 2014)

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25151113

Aberrant Cerebral Blood Flow Responses During Cognition: Implications for the Understanding of Cognitive Deficits in Fibromyalgia.

Neuropsychology. 2014 Aug 25. [Epub ahead of print]

Montoro CI, Duschek S, Muñoz Ladrón de Guevara C, Fernández-Serrano MJ, Reyes Del Paso GA.

Abstract

Objective:

There is ample evidence for cognitive deficits in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS).

The present study investigated cerebral blood flow responses during arithmetic processing in FMS patients and its relationship with performance.

The influence of clinical factors on performance and blood flow responses were also analyzed.

Method:

Forty-five FMS patients and 32 matched healthy controls completed a mental arithmetic task while cerebral blood flow velocities in the middle (MCA) and anterior (ACA) cerebral arteries were measured bilaterally using functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD).

Results:

Patients' cognitive processing speeds were slower versus healthy controls. In contrast to patients, healthy controls showed a pronounced early blood flow response (during seconds 4-6 after the warning signal) in all assessed arteries.

MCA blood flow modulation during this period was correlated with task performance.

This early blood flow response component was markedly less pronounced in FMS patients in both MCAs.

Furthermore, patients displayed an aberrant pattern of lateralization, with right hemispheric dominance especially observed in the ACA.

Severity of clinical pain in FMS patients was correlated with cognitive performance and cerebral blood flow responses.

Conclusions:

Cognitive impairment in FMS is associated with alterations in cerebral blood flow responses during cognitive processing.

These results suggest a potential physiological pathway through which psychosocial and clinical factors may affect cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

PMID: 25151113 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
These results suggest a potential physiological pathway through which psychosocial and clinical factors may affect cognition.

Of course they have to write that psychosocial factors are somehow (magically!) relevant. :bang-head:

The only psychosocial factors here are parasitic psychologists taking advantage of patients with poorly understood illnesses.
 

Simon

Senior Member
Messages
3,789
Location
Monmouth, UK
Highlights of that excellent summary by Adrienn Dellwo:

When you have fibro fog, it could be because your brain isn't getting enough blood to function properly. ..

In the healthy people, shortly after beginning the math, blood flow increased in the middle and anterior cerebral arteries. The amount of blood-flow increase was greater in those who performed better.

In those with fibromyalgia, however, the blood-flow response was much smaller... The worse the person's pain, the lower the blood flow response – and the poorer the performance.

This seems to suggest that we have problems with these types of tasks because of abnormal blood flow to the areas of the brain needed for the task. It also helps confirm a suspected link between pain and cognitive function
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
In the last decade my math skills have been declining alarmingly. In the mid 90s I could not even count to three. Any surprise here? Not for me. As usual though we still need more follow up science.

For example, increased blood flow to a region often follows increased energy demand. If energy production is suppressed then blood flow will not increase. This problem needs to be teased apart a lot more.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Of course they have to write that psychosocial factors are somehow (magically!) relevant. :bang-head:

Much of psychiatry has been trying to find the magical physiology that will explain their extreme hypotheses. Yet its a two edged sword ... it gives them experimental targets, but that evidence can also bury their unproven hypotheses.