Integration of resting-state and stimulus-fMRI uncovers reduced network flexibility in post-surgical pain.

Overview

1. Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, University Hospital Muenster, Albert-Schweitzer-Campus 1, A1, 48149 Muenster, Germany
2. Department of Clinical Radiology, Translational Research Imaging Center, Munster, Germany

Abstract

Functional MRI (fMRI) provides complementary insights into brain network organization during rest (rs-fMRI) and external stimulation (t-fMRI). While rs-fMRI reveals intrinsic connectivity patterns, t-fMRI reflects stimulus-dependent network responses. However, how these states relate to each other in animal disease models remains incompletely understood. We performed sequential acquisition of rs-fMRI and t-fMRI during low- and high-intensity mechanical paw stimulation in a rat model of post-surgical pain (PSP) and SHAM controls. Functional connectivity and network organization were analyzed using network-based statistics and graph-theoretical metrics. In addition, supervised classification of node-level network parameters was performed using linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and regional contributions to network separation were quantified using Mahalanobis distance metrics. Global connectivity strength and small-world organization were preserved across different imaging conditions in both groups, indicating stable network topology. However, multivariate classification revealed clear modality-dependent network signatures in SHAM animals that were markedly reduced in PSP. Region-wise Mahalanobis analyses showed that stimulus-related network shifts were more heterogeneous in SHAM animals, with higher dispersion and recurrent regional “hotspots”, whereas PSP animals exhibited more uniform and spatially diffuse responses. These findings indicate that post-surgical pain primarily affects the flexibility of regional network reconfiguration rather than global topology. Combining rs- and stimulus-based fMRI thus provides complementary insight into disease-related network alterations that are not detectable from resting-state data alone.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-51946-5.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper links to its data, not to its authors' code: see the Data section.

Tracing map

A tracing map links a paper to the code its authors published: this paper has none, so it has no map.

Data

Datasets cited

• openneuro:ds005839, at OpenNeuro; found in “Data availability”

Data availability

Data are publicly available under https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds005839/versions/1.0.1.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 1, 28 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 4 authors, 2 keywords, 10 MeSH terms, 46 references.

Cite

This paper

Pradier, B., Pogatzki-Zahn, E., Faber, C., & Segelcke, D. (2026). Integration of resting-state and stimulus-fMRI uncovers reduced network flexibility in post-surgical pain. Scientific reports, 16(1), 15570. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-51946-5

Similar papers

The papers with a page that share the most with this one: the tools found in their code, their categories, datasets, cited references and authors, the rarest counting most.

[1] doi:10.1162/imag.a.1357

Biphasic acclimation for simultaneous wide-field fluorescent Ca<sup>2+</sup> imaging and fMRI of awake mice.

Journal: Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)

In common: fMRI, 4 references

[2] doi:10.1162/imag.a.1202

Recurring transient brain-wide co-activation patterns from EEG spatially resembling time-averaged resting-state networks.

Journal: Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)

In common: fMRI, 4 references

[3] doi:10.1016/j.isci.2026.116903 [code]

Neurobiological and behavioral relevance of intrinsic functional connectome constraints on task-evoked neural activation.

Journal: iScience

In common: fMRI, 3 references

[4] doi:10.1016/j.isci.2026.116525

Longitudinal co-activation pattern analysis of menstrual cycle-related brain dynamics in primary dysmenorrhea.

Journal: iScience

In common: pain, 3 references

[5] doi:10.1093/braincomms/fcag220 [code]

When pain becomes self: limbic-default mode network hyperconnectivity predicts microvascular decompression failure in trigeminal neuralgia.

Journal: Brain communications

In common: pain, fMRI, 2 references

[6] doi:10.1002/nbm.70231

Complementarity of BOLD and ADC-fMRI in Mapping Brain Visual Processing in the Rat.

Journal: NMR in biomedicine

In common: rat, fMRI, 2 references

[7] doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2026.101789 [code]

Feasibility of precision functional mapping in youth multi-echo fMRI data.

Journal: Developmental cognitive neuroscience

In common: fMRI, 3 references

[8] doi:10.1162/netn.a.549 [code]

Distributed cortical network dynamics of binocular convergent eye movements in humans.

Journal: Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)

In common: fMRI, 3 references

[9] doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-9326213/v1 [code]

Multi-task fMRI outperforms resting-state fMRI for revealing task-invariant organization of the human brain

Journal: Research Square (preprint)

In common: fMRI, 3 references

[10] doi:10.64898/2026.03.09.710558 [code]

Multi-task fMRI outperforms resting-state fMRI for revealing task-invariant organization of the human brain

Journal: bioRxiv (preprint)

In common: fMRI, 3 references

Contribute

The authors of this paper can claim it, correct its record and validate its tracing map, and the maintainers of its code (its owner, or a public member of its organization) correct what it says of their repository; anyone signed in can ask for its removal. Every request goes to OSCR's own machine, which answers it; your account page follows them.

Request its removal

To ask OSCR to remove this record, the copies of its authors' scripts or its tracing map, use the removal request page: signed in, you say who you are, what to remove and why, then review and confirm the request. Published rules decide every request (how).

Discussion: questions and error reports about this paper and its code, from signed-in readers and its authors. It opens with sign-in.

Reproductions: reports from readers who ran the authors' code: what they reproduced, with which environment, commit and data. It opens with sign-in.

Activity: what happens around this paper: new versions of its record, its map's validation, discussions and reproductions. It opens with sign-in.