Eights Fibromyalgia Meeting at UF

Topics: Decreased Grey Matter of FM Patients

Functional brain imaging (fMRI) has shown significant dysfunction in many pain related brain areas of FM patients. Our own work demonstrated that FM patients require less painful stimuli compared to normal controls to have the same pain. We have recently started to investigate grey matter brain changes in FM patients. We hypothesize that excessive activation of pain related brain areas can lead to cell death and/or brain atrophy. THis means that less neurons may be available to process pain related information in FM patients. In addition, other investigators have found that FM patients have a 9 times faster reduction of grey matter over time than normal controls. Dr. Staud will share his findings related to this research at the Annual FM Meeting in May 2009.