Figure 1.
a, Brain gray matter, white matter, CSF, and total volume in 10 fibromyalgia patients and 10 healthy control subjects. Values are expressed in millimeters cubed ± SEM. Including age as a covariate of no interest, fibromyalgia patients had significantly less gray matter and total brain volume than controls. b, Brain gray matter tissue volume plotted against age. Gray matter volume correlated significantly with age in fibromyalgia patients (r = −0.90; p < 0.001), with a similar trend in healthy controls (r = −0.57; p = 0.086). Fibromyalgia patients showed a significantly steeper age-related decline than controls (F(1,18) = 281.57; p < 0.001). c, Gray matter volume versus time since the patient had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Gray matter volume was significantly correlated with time since diagnosis (r = −0.79; p = 0.007), with a loss of 10.5 cm3 in gray matter with each year of diagnosed fibromyalgia. The slope was significantly greater than age-associated loss in healthy controls (F(1,18) = 310.78; p < 0.001) with a magnitude of decrease equivalent to ∼9.5 years of normal aging seen in healthy controls. Gray matter volume for healthy controls is depicted on the figure, but was not used in the regression analysis. yrs, Years. *p < 0.05.