Abnormal activity of default mode network in GERD patients

Huihui Sun, Ying Chen, Xiaohu Zhao, Xiangbin Wang, Yuanxi Jiang, Ping Wu, Yinhan Tang, Qingwei Meng, Shuchang Xu

Abnormal processing of esophageal sensation at the level of the central nervous system has been proven to be involved in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). However, most studies were focused on the possible functions of perceptual processing related network during task status, little attention has been paid to default mode network, which has been manifested to be important in the pathogenesis of many diseases. In our study, we compared the brain activity characteristic in GERD patients with the healthy subjects (HS) at baseline, looking for whether activities of default mode network were abnormal in GERD patients and attempting to identify their possible roles in GERD. In present study, fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation was adopted to detect the brain activities at baseline. Group-level analyses were conducted by one-sample t test within groups (voxel thresholds were p<0.001 and cluster level>42, corrected P<0.05) and independent-samples t test between groups (p<0.01 and cluster level>90, corrected P<0.05) using SPM5.