People with chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) may have a higher risk of cognitive decline including dementia. Specifically, those with knee osteoarthritis have more accelerated brain aging, according to a study published March 26 in Nature Mental Health.
Investigators evaluated MRI findings from 9,344 people in the UK. The team wanted to compare brain age and chronological age using the scans. It compared results from people with CMP to healthy controls. Researchers found that people with knee osteoarthritis had quicker brain aging compared to those without it.
“We not only revealed the specificity of accelerated brain aging in KOA patients, but importantly, we also provided longitudinal evidence suggesting the ability of our brain aging marker to predict future memory decline and increased dementia risk,” Tu Yiheng, an author from the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a statement.
Authors said their work gives a glimpse into the possible link between cognitive function and inflammation. Specifically, the study indicates that the gene SLC39A8 is the connection between knee osteoarthritis and cognitive decline.
Inflammation is seen as a contributing factor to neurological ailments, Steve Allder, MD, consultant neurologist at Re:Cognition Health, who was not involved in the study, told Medical News Today.
“Increasingly, particularly for depression and Alzheimer’s, and other conditions — for example, a recent review invoked this in Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Gulf War Illness and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome,” Allder said.
Medhat Mikhael, MD, pain management specialist and medical director of the nonoperative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, told the publication that inflammation and chronic pain can interrupt and change the way the brain processes things.
“Chronic inflammation like knee osteoarthritis or chronic musculoskeletal pain are associated with changes in the central nervous system causing what is known as neuroplasticity, which changes in the structural and functional state of the brain,” Mikhael said. “Chronic pain has been found to cause significant alternations of the brain’s structure and function due to changes in pain processing and disrupted cognitive functions, including with respect to the prefrontal cortex.”
The study didn’t look at other CMP disorders beyond knees, though.
“It would have been beneficial to study other chronic inflammatory pain disorders and see if they would come to the same conclusion,” Mikhael said.
