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. 2013 Aug 26;136(9):2751–2768. doi: 10.1093/brain/awt211

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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain 2013. This work is written by US Government employees and is in the public domain in the US.

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Medial prefrontal cortex–nucleus accumbens (mPFC-NAc) functional connectivity strength predicts extent of shift in brain activity underlying spontaneous pain in patients with persistent SBP from pain-related to emotion-related regions. (A) Brain image shows the location and coordinates of the medial prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens seeds used. (B) Bar graph shows the mean ± SEM for medial prefrontal cortex–nucleus accumbens functional connectivity in persistent SBP (black) and recovering SBP (grey) at visit 1. Persistent SBP exhibited higher medial prefrontal cortex–nucleus accumbens connectivity compared with recovering SBP. (C) Scatter plots show the relationship between medial prefrontal cortex–nucleus accumbens connectivity at visit 1 and change in brain activity (Δ Parametric estimate = average cope at visit 4 − average cope at visit 1) for pain (left) and emotion (right) term related masks. High medial prefrontal cortex–nucleus accumbens connectivity showed a strong relationship with decreased activation in pain regions and increased activiations in emotional regions in patients with persistent SBP over a 1-year period (visit 4 versus visit 1).