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Detection of changes in the periaqueductal gray matter of patients with episodic migraine using quantitative diffusion kurtosis imaging: preliminary findings

  • Diagnostic Neuroradiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Introduction

The periaqueductal gray matter (PAG) is considered to play an important role in generating migraine, but findings from imaging studies remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated whether diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) can detect changes in the PAG of migraine patients.

Methods

We obtained source images for DKI from 20 patients with episodic migraine and 20 healthy controls using a 3 T magnetic resonance imaging scanner. Mean kurtosis (MK), fractional anisotropy (FA), and mean diffusivity (MD) maps were generated, and the values of the PAG and other deep gray and white matter structures were automatically measured using an atlas-based region-of-interest analysis. The metrics of these structures were compared between the patients and controls.

Results

The MK and MD values of the PAG were significantly increased in the migraine patients compared with the controls (p < 0.05). The FA values were not significantly different. There were no significant differences in the metrics of the other structures between the patients and controls. The MK values of the PAG were significantly positively correlated with both age and the untreated period in the patient group under univariate analysis (r = 0.53 and 0.56, respectively; p < 0.05) but not multivariate analysis.

Conclusions

DKI detected significant increases in the MK and MD values of the PAG in patients with migraine, which suggests that structural changes in the PAG are associated with the pathophysiological mechanisms of migraine.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Strategic Medical Science Research (S1491001) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Ultra-High Field MRI, Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Iwate Medical University, 2-1-1 Nishitokuta, Yahaba, Iwate, 028-3694, Japan

    Kenji Ito, Makoto Sasaki, Fumio Yamashita, Ikuko Uwano & Hiroyuki Kameda

  2. Department of Neurology and Gerontology, Iwate Medical University, Iwate, Japan

    Masako Kudo, Ayumi Saito & Yasuo Terayama

  3. Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Hokkaido University Hospital, Hokkaido, Japan

    Taisuke Harada

  4. Research & Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

    Suguru Yokosawa

Authors
  1. Kenji Ito
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  2. Masako Kudo
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  3. Makoto Sasaki
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  4. Ayumi Saito
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  7. Suguru Yokosawa
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  9. Hiroyuki Kameda
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  10. Yasuo Terayama
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kenji Ito.

Ethics declarations

We declare that all human studies have been approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. We declare that all patients gave informed consent prior to inclusion in this study.

Conflict of interest

SY is an employee of Hitachi, Ltd. MS has received an honorarium and research grant from Hitachi Medical Corp.

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Ito, K., Kudo, M., Sasaki, M. et al. Detection of changes in the periaqueductal gray matter of patients with episodic migraine using quantitative diffusion kurtosis imaging: preliminary findings. Neuroradiology 58, 115–120 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-015-1603-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-015-1603-8

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