Altered Structural Covariance of Insula, Cerebellum and Prefrontal Cortex Is Associated with Somatic Symptom Levels in (IBS), 2021, Grinsvall et al

[Andy]

Abstract

Somatization, defined as the presence of multiple somatic symptoms, frequently occurs in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and may constitute the clinical manifestation of a neurobiological sensitization process. Brain imaging data was acquired with T1 weighted 3 tesla MRI, and gray matter morphometry were analyzed using FreeSurfer. We investigated differences in networks of structural covariance, based on graph analysis, between regional gray matter volumes in IBS-related brain regions between IBS patients with high and low somatization levels, and compared them to healthy controls (HCs). When comparing IBS low somatization (N = 31), IBS high somatization (N = 35), and HCs (N = 31), we found: (1) higher centrality and neighbourhood connectivity of prefrontal cortex subregions in IBS high somatization compared to healthy controls; (2) higher centrality of left cerebellum in IBS low somatization compared to both IBS high somatization and healthy controls; (3) higher centrality of the anterior insula in healthy controls compared to both IBS groups, and in IBS low compared to IBS high somatization. The altered structural covariance of prefrontal cortex and anterior insula in IBS high somatization implicates that prefrontal processes may be more important than insular in the neurobiological sensitization process associated with IBS high somatization.

Open access, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/12/1580/htm

 

[Snow Leopard]

I struggle to take biomarker studies seriously, when they don't bother to calculate sensitivity and specificity... Or if your observations don't actually predict anything in particular, then you can't start making causal claims.

 

[FMMM1]

I struggle to take biomarker studies seriously ---

Unfortunately I could go with that abbreviated quote. I'm hoping that the GWAS study [Chris Ponting's] will help to focus biomarker studies and thereby provide useful results.

 

[Milo]

Their use of ‘somatization’ for common symptoms that are experienced by patients is insulting. i have read a paper recently that said that somatization was a synonym for hysteria.

PHQ-15 is a validated questionnaire to assess the severity of the 15 most common somatic symptoms; nausea, abdominal pain, altered bowel habit, back pain, limb pain, headaches, chest pain, dizziness, fainting spells, palpitations, breathlessness, menstrual cramps, dyspareunia, insomnia, and lethargy [32]. The score ranges between 0 and 30 and can be used as a continuous measure. Alternatively, cut-off scores of 5, 10, and 15 can be used to define low, medium, and high levels of somatic symptom severity (i.e., somatization) [32]. One of the questions is on menstrual pain and, hence, applies to women only. We removed this question in order not to induce a systematic difference in somatization levels between men and women, and denoted this reduced questionnaire PHQ-14

To insert menstrual cramps as somatization is suggesting that all women of age are somatizing.

Labelling people as somatizing (or being hysterical) so widely and blatantly will have unintended consequences on patients who are physically struggling but do not label themselves as somatizing, namely patients will simply keep their symptoms for themselves which could delay serious diagnosis.

i am not going through the whole paper as i am quite put off from the get go.

I have great doubts that the recruitment posters asked for patients with somatization and i would assume that the participants would not be impressed to be qualified as such.