Millions of people suffering from fibromyalgia often experience widespread musculoskeletal pain, sleep disturbances, headaches and mood disorders. Many also struggle to even get a diagnosis, since there are currently no laboratory tests for fibromyalgia and the main symptoms overlap with many other conditions. However, new research may help.
Scientists from the University of Colorado, Boulder may have found a pattern of brain activity that identifies the disease. They used functional MRI (fMRI) scans to study the brain activity of 37 fibromyalgia patients and 35 matched healthy controls, while the participants were exposed to a series of painful and non-painful sensations.
As reported recently in the journal Pain, the research team identified three specific neurological patterns correlated with fibromyalgia patients' hypersensitivity to pain.
Using the combination of all three patterns, they were able to correctly classify the fibromyalgia patients and the controls with 92 percent sensitivity and 94 percent specificity -- meaning that their test accurately identified 92 percent of those with and 94 percent of those without the disease.
Tor Wager, PhD, senior author and director of the school's Cognitive and Affective Control Laboratory, explained the significance of the work in a recent news release:
Though many pain specialists have established clinical procedures for diagnosing fibromyalgia, the clinical label does not explain what is happening neurologically and it does not reflect the full individuality of patients' suffering. The potential for brain measures like the ones we developed here is that they can tell us something about the particular brain abnormalities that drive an individual's suffering. That can help us both recognize fibromyalgia for what it is - a disorder of the central nervous system - and treat it more effectively.
More research is needed, but this study sheds a bit of light on this "invisible" disease.
Previously: Fibromyalgia -- living with a controversial chronic disease, Fight the pain by finding the light and Patients with "invisible illnesses" speak out about challenges in their communities and workplaces
Photo by dasstudios
