Brain Wave Patterns in Patients With Chronic Low Back Pain: A Case-control Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Research evidence indicates that maladaptive reorganization of the brain plays a critical role in amplifying pain experiences and pain chronification; however, no clear evidence of change exists in brain wave activity among patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP). The objective of this study was to assess brain wave activity in patients with CLBP, compared to healthy controls. Methods: Twenty-five patients with CLBP and twenty-four healthy controls participated in the study. A quantitative electroencephalography device was used to assess brain wave activity in eyes-open and eyes-closed (EO and EC) conditions. The regional absolute and relative power of brain waves were compared between the groups. Results: Our results showed a significant increase in the absolute power of theta (F=5.905, P=0.019), alpha (F=5.404, P=0.024) waves in patients with CLBP compared to healthy subjects in both EC and EO conditions. Patients with CLBP showed a reduced delta absolute power in the frontal region (F=5.852, P=0.019) and augmented delta absolute power in the central region (F=5.597, P=0.022) in the EO condition. An increased delta absolute power was observed in the frontal (F=7.563 P=0.008), central (F=10.430, P=0.002), and parietal (F=4.596, P=0.037) regions in patients with CLBP compared to the healthy subjects in the EC condition. In the EC condition, significant increases in theta relative power (F=4.680, P=0.036) in the parietal region were also found in patients with CLBP. Conclusion: The increased absolute power of brain waves in people with CLBP may indicate cortical overactivity and changes in the pain processing mechanisms in these patients. Highlights: Chronic low back pain (CLBP) increases the alpha, theta, and delta power in the brain.CLBP is associated with increased brain wave activity in the frontal, central, and parietal regions.Our findings suggest altered central pain processing in CLBP. Plain Language Summary: Traditional diagnosis and treatment of CLBP are mainly focused on peripheral pathology. But, the modern neuroscience approach to pain highlights the role of cortical plasticity in chronic musculoskeletal pain. In this regard, several studies found structural and functional changes in the brain in patients with chronic pain. Detailed knowledge about cortical changes in CLBP can improve our understanding of mechanisms involved in CLBP, opening a new window to better treatment of LBP (Low back pain). This study investigated brain wave activity in patients with CLBP compared to healthy individuals. Our findings suggest increased brain activity in various parts of the brain in patients with chronic LBP. This finding indicates that CLBP treatment should focus on both peripheral and cortical factors rather than local tissue damage.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".