title: Altered resting state attentional networks in diabetic neuropathic pain.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Chronic pain can be considered as a highly salient stimulus that continuously taxes the attentional and salience processing networks, thus interfering with cognitive abilities and, more specifically, consuming attentional resources. The aim of the paper was to explore whether and how diabetic neuropathic pain (NP) affects attentional networks.
  
  
  METHODS
  The authors sought to achieve this by investigating resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) in diabetic NP patients and comparing it with that of matched healthy controls.
  
  
  RESULTS
  NP patients showed a widespread reduction in connectivity in both the dorsal and ventral attentional networks, as well as in the dorsal anterior cingulated cortex (ACC), typically implicated in salience processing. The authors also found a generalised reduction in the length of functional connections in the NP group: in all the examined networks, the Euclidean distance between connected voxels was significantly shorter in patients than in controls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In diabetic NP, a parieto-fronto-cingulate network controlling attention to external stimuli is impaired. In line with previous studies, chronic pain can disrupt the synchrony of a common pool of brain areas, involved in self-monitoring, pain processing and salience detection.
authors: CCS fMRI, Koelliker Hospital, Turin, Italy. franco.cauda@unito.it
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Cauda
authors: F
authors: F
authors: D'Agata
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Sacco
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Duca
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Cocito
authors: I
authors: I
authors: Paolasso
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Isoardo
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Geminiani
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003929:Diabetic Neuropathies / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D017352:Echo-Planar Imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000473:pathology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D012044:Regression Analysis
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen