Fig. 10

MEMRI-functional connectivity seeded from ipsilateral AIC of neuropathic pain rats on Day 8 after SNI. In sub-Figs. a and b, coronal slices of the rat brain are shown from the left side the most caudal level to the most rostral level on the right side. In B, statistical t-maps are shown in 12 representative coronal slices, from the most caudal level (13 mm caudal to the bregma, upper-left corner) to the most rostral (5 mm rostral to the bregma, lower-right). (a) The green area shows the seeding ROI at coronal sections “Methods” mm, 1 mm and 0 mm caudal to the bregma for the connectivity analysis in Fig. 10b, which was defined by the brain activity in the AIC area shown in Fig. 4c. (b) MEMRI-functional connectivity map generated through multiple regression analysis with the inter-subject variability of AIC activations as the regressor. The contralateral S1HL area (blue arrows) and bilateral RAIC (yellow arrows) exhibited significant functional connections with the AIC. (c) Activity within the significant area of the contralateral S1HL area (blue arrows) was extracted. Activity in the ipsilateral AIC and contralateral S1HL area are plotted together (sham: n = 10; SNI: n = 8). The SNI group alone exhibited a significant activity correlation between the ipsilateral AIC and contralateral S1 (P < .05). (d) Quantitative neural activity in the contralateral S1HL area and ipsilateral AIC. Activity in the ipsilateral AIC was significantly higher in the SNI group than in the sham group (P < .005), whereas no difference in contralateral S1HL activity was observed between these two groups