Fig. 11

MEMRI-functional connectivity seeded from ipsilateral RAIC of neuropathic pain rats on Day 8 after SNI. In sub-figures, 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, c and d, 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 yellow area shows the seeding ROI at coronal sections “Introduction” mm, 2 mm and 3 mm rostral to the bregma for the connectivity analysis in Fig. 11b, which was defined by the brain activation in the RAIC area shown in Fig. 4c. (b) MEMRI-functional connectivity map generated through multiple regression analysis with the intersubject variability of RAIC activations as the regressor. The contralateral ACC (red arrows) and dorsal brainstem (green arrows) areas exhibited significant functional connections with the RAIC (P < .05). (c) Voxel-wise comparison of brain activity between SNI and sham group rats on Day 8 day after SNI surgery. The SNI group exhibited increased activity in the RAIC (yellow arrows) and dorsal brainstem (blue arrows) areas (P < .05). (d) Merged image of (b) and (c). The strong negatively correlated brainstem areas (P < .003) derived from (b) are denoted in green and mostly located in the LC. The positively correlated brain areas in (b) are denoted in magenta and located around the LC without having a colocalized area