Brain signatures of nociplastic pain: Fibromyalgia Index and descending modulation at population level.

ABSTRACT: Nociplastic pain is defined by altered nociceptive processing in the absence of clear peripheral damage or somatosensory lesions. The Fibromyalgia Index (FMI), derived from the 2016 diagnostic criteria, is increasingly used as a marker of nociplastic pain severity in clinical studies, yet its neurobiological validity remains untested at scale. Using multimodal neuroimaging data from over 40,000 participants in UK Biobank, we examined whether FMI scores were associated with altered functional and structural connectivity within the descending pain modulatory system (DPMS), a brain network involved in endogenous pain control and implicated in nociplastic pain conditions. Functional connectivity was assessed using resting-state functional MRI (rfMRI), and structural connectivity using diffusio

SUBMITTER: Kelleher EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7618718 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature