Objectives: Chronic low back pain is thought to be associated with physiological and
psychological modifications. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship
between regional brain responses to visual low back pain stimuli and the score of
depression scales in young women using near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS).
Methods: The subjects were 11 healthy right-handed young female adults aged 21 to
22. They completed the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II). They also completed the
Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ) which has gained popularity through the
work of researchers in chronic and acute low back pain. Using multi-channel NIRS
machine, we measured regional cerebral oxygenation changes of the four regions of
interest: the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the bilateral frontal pole
(FP) while the subjects viewed randomly presented pictures of daily activities that have
been described as being perceived as either harmful or harmless for the low back. The
DLPFC and FP are considered important for processing emotional salience. This study was
approved by the Ethical Committee of Tohoku Fukushi University. All participants were
informed of the study purpose beforehand and provided written consent to participate.
Results: The BDI-II score and the FABQ score were correlated positively. The subjects
were divided into two groups depending on the score of BDI-II. Six subjects were in the
high score group and five subjects were in the low score group. There were significant
differences of the neural activation in the right DLPFC and the right FP between the two
groups during viewing the pictures of harmful for the back. The subjects of high score
group showed decreased activation in the two regions, on the other hand, the low score
group showed exaggerated activation.
Conclusion: The findings suggest that women with depressive tendencies show a
decrease in the neural activation in the DLPFC and the FP as responding to the stimuli of
reminding the low back pain.
(慢性腰痛は心理社会的要因と関連するといわれている。本研究の目的は。腰痛関連視覚刺激時の脳反応をNIRSで計測し、抑うつとの関連について若年女性で検討することである。
11人の女子学生をBDI-Ⅱの得点により抑うつ高群と抑うつ低い群の2つに分けた。腰痛に有害な刺激を呈示したときの脳反応において抑うつ高群が低群よりFP領域・DLPFC領域で、有意に低い脳反応であった。）
PA3-2-14
MotokoTanabe, KatsukoNiwano, Yosuke Sato , Kenji Suzuki
