The modulation effects of the mind-body and physical exercises on the basolateral amygdala-temporal pole pathway on individuals with knee osteoarthritis

• Jiao Liu ^[1] ; Weilin Liu ^[1] ; Jia Huang ^[1] ; Yajun Wang ^[1] ; Baoru Zhao ^[1] ; Peiling Zeng ^[1] ; Guiyan Cai ^[1] ; Ruilin Chen ^[1] ; Kun Hu ^[1] ; YouXue Tu ^[1] ; Meiqin Lin ^[1] ; Jian Kong ^[2] ; Jing Tao ^[1] ; Lidian Chen ^[1]
  1. [1] Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine

     Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine

     China

     
  2. [2] Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
• Localización: International journal of clinical and health psychology, ISSN 1697-2600, Vol. 24, Nº. 1, 2024, págs. 81-90
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Abstract Background/Objective To investigate the modulatory effects of different physical exercise modalities on connectivity of amygdala subregions and its association with pain symptoms in patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA).

    Methods 140 patients with KOA were randomly allocated either to the Tai Chi, Baduanjin, Stationary cycling, or health education group and conducted a 12 week-long intervention in one of the four groups. The behavioral, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and blood data were collected at baseline and the end of the study.

    Results Compared to the control group, all physical exercise modalities lead to significant increases in Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) pain score (pain relief) and serum Programmed Death-1 (PD-1) levels. Additionally, all physical exercise modalities resulted in decreased resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the basolateral amygdala (BA)-temporal pole and BA-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). The overlapping BA-temporal pole rsFC observed in both Tai Chi and Baduanjin groups was significantly associated with pain relief, while the BA-mPFC rsFC was significantly associated with PD-1 levels. In addition, we found increased fractional anisotropy (FA) values, a measurement of water diffusion anisotropy of tissue that responded to changes in brain microstructure, within the mind-body exercise groups' BA-temporal pole pathway. The average FA value of this pathway was positively correlated with KOOS pain score at baseline across all subjects.

    Conclusions Our findings suggest that physical exercise has the potential to modulate both functional and anatomical connectivity of the amygdala subregions, indicating a possible shared pathway for various physical exercise modalities.