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. 2022 Jul 6;3(7):100677. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100677

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Functional connectivity of NAc and vmPFC independent of learning (i.e., resting-state functional connectivity) shows low predictive value of the transition from subacute to chronic pain

(Left) Correlations of the percentage of change in pain severity from baseline to the 6 month follow up with the resting-state functional connectivity between vmPFC and bilateral NAc. The dashed vertical line indicates the 20% cutoff that was used to binarize the change in pain severity for the ROC curves on the right side. Resting-state functional connectivity was extracted as the correlation between individual time series in predefined masks, which were extracted from http://neurosynth.org (see STAR methods). Correlations are reported as Pearson’s correlation with Bonferroni-corrected p values (corrected for 2 tests, yielding a threshold of p < 0.025). (Right) Corresponding ROC curves were created for classifying recovered and persistent pain patients with the functional connectivity between vmPFC and NAc at rest. We report the area under each ROC curve as an estimate of sensitivity and specificity. Associated p values for the comparison to a chance-level ROC curve (i.e., AUC = 0.5) are reported as Bonferroni-corrected p values (corrected for 2 tests yielding an uncorrected threshold of p < 0.025). Boxplots additionally show the distribution of recovered patients (yellow) and patients with persistent pain at follow up (blue). The hinges of the boxplots represent the first and third quartiles, and the whiskers extend to the last value within 1.5 times the interquartile range. Single data points are shown as circles. Outliers are depicted as empty circles and imputed values as triangles. vmPFC, ventromedial prefrontal cortex; lNAc, left nucleus accumbens; rNAc, right nucleus accumbens; BL, baseline; FU, follow up; AUC, area under the curve; RS, resting state; PE, parameter estimates; SABP, patients with subacute back pain; SABPp/r: patients with SABP with persistent pain or recovered pain after 6 months, based on a pain reduction of 20% from baseline to the follow-up assessment.