Researchers have found that patients with fibromyalgia have characteristic changes in the brain, which don’t show up on images and scans of muscles and bones, can be seen in single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans. Patients suffering from fibromyalgia have often been dubbed hypochondriacs and left to deal with the pain characteristic of the disease.

The report published in the November issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine by pain researchers in Marseilles, France found that SPECT imaging revealed significant differences in the brain function of 20 women diagnosed with fibromyalgia and 10 healthy women used as a control group. SPECT technology allows precise measurements of blood flow to different parts of the brain and therefore of electrical activity. In the scans they found women with fibromyalgia, parts of the brain responsible for discriminating degrees of pain were significantly more active than in normal, healthy women.

Far lower levels of activity in the parts of the brain widely believed to process emotional responses to pain were found in Fibromyalgia sufferers and the more severe the subject's symptoms, the more pronounced were the differences in cerebral blood flow. Dr. Eric Guedj, lead author of the study and M.D., of the Hospitals of Marseille said these findings show fibromyalgia as "a real disease/disorder," and suggested that the disorder "may be related to a global dysfunction of the cerebral pain-processing."

Fibromyalgia is thought to affect as many as one in 50 Americans, and is one of the most common causes of pain and disability. Characterized by chronic muscle and joint pain, fatigue and depression, 80% to 90% of those diagnosed with the disease are women.

Dr. Guedj and colleagues wrote, "The relationship between somatosensory hyperperfusion and fibromyalgia clinical severity is reported for, to our knowledge, the first time and reinforces the central sensitization hypothesis." They added that the low perfusion in the left anterior temporal region, part of the limbic system, may explain another aspect of fibromyalgia. "Hypoperfusion of this area could be related to reduced affective appraisal and responsiveness, frequently observed in patients with fibromyalgia," they said.

According to Dr. Guedj and colleagues, the findings suggest that fibromyalgia is a disorder of central pain processing in which pain sensations are heightened. These results may also explain why no musculoskeletal abnormalities have been found in fibromyalgia patients.

Lyrica, the prescription pain medication was recently approved by the FDA for those suffering from the disease. It is the first medication to be approved for this condition. Guedj and his colleagues suggest that SPECT imaging other than yielding clues to fibromyalgia's origins could help in the development and testing of new drugs to treat the disorder.