Detection of Brain Regions Responsible for Chronic Pain in Osteoarthritis: an FMRI-based Neuroimaging Study Using Deep Learning

Introduction: Chronic pain is a multifaceted condition that has yet to be fully comprehended. It is frequently linked with a range of disorders, particularly osteoarthritis (OA), which arises from the progressive deterioration of the protective cartilage that cushions the bone endings over time.

Methods: In this paper, we examine the impact of chronic pain on the brain using advanced deep learning (DL) algorithms that leverage resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from both OA pain patients and healthy controls. Our study encompasses fMRI data from 51 pain patients and 20 healthy subjects. To differentiate chronic pain-affected OA patients from healthy controls, we introduce a DL-based computer-aided diagnosis framework that incorporates Multi-Layer Perceptron and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), separately.

Results: Among the examined algorithms, we discovered that CNN outperformed the others and achieved a notable accuracy rate of nearly 85%. In addition, our investigation scrutinized the brain regions affected by chronic pain and successfully identified several regions that have not been mentioned in previous literature, including the occipital lobe, the superior frontal gyrus, the cuneus, the middle occipital gyrus, and the culmen.

Discussion: This pioneering study explores the applicability of DL algorithms in pinpointing the differentiating brain regions in OA patients who experience chronic pain. The outcomes of our research could make a significant contribution to medical research on OA pain patients and facilitate fMRI-based pain recognition, ultimately leading to enhanced clinical intervention for chronic pain patients.