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Altered white matter microstructure identified with tract-based spatial statistics in irritable bowel syndrome: a diffusion tensor imaging study

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Abstract

The neural mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of irritable bowel syndrome(IBS) are far from being completely understood. The purpose of the present study was to investigate potential white matter (WM) microstructural changes and underlying causes for WM impairment in IBS using diffusion tensor imaging. The present prospective study involved 19 patients with IBS and 20 healthy controls. Whole-brain voxel-wise analyses of fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) were performed by tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) to localize abnormal WM regions between the 2 groups. We found that IBS patients had significantly reduced FA (P < 0.05) in the splenium of the corpus callosum, the right retrolenticular area of the internal capsule and the right superior corona radiata. We also found increased MD (P < 0.05) in the splenium and body of the corpus callosum, the right retrolenticular area of the internal capsule, the right superior corona radiata and the right posterior limb of the internal capsule. In addition, IBS patients had significantly increased AD (P < 0.05) in the splenium of the corpus callosum, the bilateral retrolenticular area of the internal capsule and the left posterior limb of the internal capsule. We conclude that the WM microstructure is changed in IBS and the underlying pathological basis may be attributed to the axonal injury and loss. These results may lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of IBS.

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Abbreviations

IBS:

irritable bowel syndrome

TBSS:

tract-based spatial statistics

DTI:

diffusion tensor imaging

WM:

white matter

FA:

fractional anisotropy

MD:

mean diffusivity

AD:

axial diffusivity

RD:

radial diffusivity

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the Natural Scientific Foundation of China (grant no. 81471639) and Guangdong Provincial Natural Scientific Foundation (grant no. 2015 A030313723). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, the decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Imaging, Guangdong No.2 Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangzhou, 510317, People’s Republic of China

    Jin Fang, Shumei Li, Meng Li, Xiaofen Ma, Huanhuan Su, Tianyue Wang, Wenfeng Zhan, Jianhao Yan, Ming Xu, Yaxi Zhang, Luxian Zeng, Junzhang Tian & Guihua Jiang

  2. Philips Healthcare, Hong Kong, China

    Queenie Chan

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  1. Jin Fang
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Correspondence to Guihua Jiang.

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Author Jin Fang, Shumei Li, Meng Li, Queenie Chan, Xiaofen Ma, Huanhuan Su, Tianyue Wang, Wenfeng Zhan, Jianhao Yan, Ming Xu, Yaxi Zhang, Luxian Zeng, Junzhang Tian, Guihua Jiang declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Jin Fang and Shumei Li contributed equally to this work.

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Fang, J., Li, S., Li, M. et al. Altered white matter microstructure identified with tract-based spatial statistics in irritable bowel syndrome: a diffusion tensor imaging study. Brain Imaging and Behavior 11, 1110–1116 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-016-9573-y

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