Gray matter volume reduction with different disease duration in trigeminal neuralgia

PURPOSE: Structural magnetic resonance imaging is widely used to explore brain gray and white matter structure in trigeminal neuralgia (TN) but has yielded conflicting findings. This study investigated the relationship between disease duration as a clinical feature of TN and changes in brain structure. METHODS: We divided 49 TN patients into three groups (TN1–TN3) based on disease duration (TN1 = 1.1 ± 0.7 (0–2) years, TN2 = 4.8 ± 1.5 (3–7) years, TN3 = 15.1 ± 5.5 (10–30) years). We used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to compare the gray matter volume (GMV) across groups and between TN patients and 18 matched healthy control subjects. RESULTS: The TN1 group showed reduced GMV of pain-related regions in the cerebellum; the TN2 group showed reduced GMV in the thalamus and the motor/sensory cortex; and the TN3 group showed reduced GMV in the emotional and reward circuits compared with healthy controls. Similar brain regions, including bilateral hippocampi, caudate, left insular cortex, and medial superior frontal cortex, were affected in TN2 and TN3 compared with TN1. CONCLUSION: Disease duration can explain differences in structural alterations—especially in pain-related brain regions—in TN. These results highlight the advanced structural neuroimaging method that are valuable tools to assess the trigeminal system in TN and may further our current understanding of TN pathology.