脳画像解析で新たな片頭痛分類を発見(Brain imaging reveals new migraine classifications)

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2026-05-07 スタンフォード大学

米国のスタンフォード大学の研究チームは、脳画像解析を用いて片頭痛を新たに分類する手法を開発した。従来、片頭痛は症状ベースで分類されてきたが、患者間の病態差を十分に説明できない課題があった。研究ではMRIなどの脳画像データを解析し、脳内ネットワーク活動や構造的特徴の違いから複数の片頭痛タイプを識別できることを示した。これにより、同じ診断名でも異なる神経機構を持つ患者群が存在する可能性が明らかになった。研究者らは、新分類が個別化医療の実現につながり、患者ごとに最適な治療法や薬剤選択を行える可能性があると説明している。また、AIを活用した画像解析技術により、片頭痛だけでなく他の神経疾患診断精度向上にも応用できると期待されている。

<関連情報>

神経画像診断に基づく片頭痛のサブタイプ分類により、臨床的に異なる表現型が特定される Neuroimaging-based subtyping of migraine identifies clinically distinct phenotypes

Jaiashre Sridhar, Mahsa Babaei, […], and Danielle D. DeSouza
Cephalalgia  Published:March 26, 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/03331024261433982


Graphical abstract This is a visual representation of the abstract.

Abstract

Background

Integrating brain structure and function may help characterize neurobiological heterogeneity in migraine alongside symptom presentation.

Aim

To apply a multimodal, exploratory, data-driven approach to identify migraine subgroups using structural and functional MRI, and to describe the clinical characteristics of the resulting subgroups.

Methods

Resting-state functional connectivity (FC) across cortical and subcortical regions, along with structural measures including cortical thickness, cortical volume, and subcortical volumes, were extracted from 111 individuals with migraine (75 chronic, 36 episodic) classified according to ICHD-3 criteria. After dimensionality reduction using principal component analysis, hierarchical agglomerative clustering was applied to identify multimodal imaging-derived subgroups. For comparison, secondary unimodal clustering models were constructed using functional-only and structural-only feature sets. The optimal number of clusters was determined using silhouette coefficients, and clustering concordance across models was quantified using the Adjusted Rand Index (ARI). Group differences in clinical characteristics, FC, and cortical and subcortical structure were assessed using covariate-adjusted statistical models with false discovery rate (FDR) correction.

Results

Multimodal clustering identified two subgroups with distinct clinical and imaging profiles, Migraine Cluster 1 (M1f+s) and Migraine Cluster 2 (M2f+s). M2f+s showed older age, longer disease duration, greater migraine disability, widespread increases in cortical-subcortical FC (including Dorsal Attention, Somatomotor, and Visual networks), and reduced cortical volumes across frontal, parietal, temporal, and insular regions compared with M1f+s. This subgroup also exhibited increased connectivity relative to controls. In contrast, M1f+s showed preserved cortical structure and stronger Control-network–subcortical connectivity compared to M2f+s, and no significant functional or structural deviations from controls. Unimodal analyses revealed that Functional-only clustering aligned moderately with the multimodal cluster solution (ARI = 0.427), showing that FC was a primary determinant of the multimodal cluster structure, whereas structural-only clustering showed negligible overlap (ARI = 0.001), reflecting an orthogonal dimension of heterogeneity captured by structural variation.

Conclusion

Data-driven multimodal neuroimaging-based clustering in migraine identified two subgroups with distinct clinical and imaging patterns, highlighting heterogeneity and providing a framework for further investigation of imaging-informed characterization.

医療・健康
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