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Open Imaging Index
MRI Brain

OpenPain: Accumbens Chronic Pain Signature

OpenPain Project: Loss of nucleus accumbens low-frequency fluctuations is a signature of chronic pain (Yale)

Brain MRI and resting-state fMRI of patients with recent-onset or chronic low back pain and healthy controls, from a study of the nucleus accumbens as a marker of pain becoming chronic. 98 people from Yale, a subset rescanned after about a year, shared through the OpenPain Project.

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Overview

This OpenPain Project entry holds the Yale cohort that Makary and colleagues used to study the nucleus accumbens in back pain. People with recent-onset (subacute) low back pain, people with chronic low back pain and pain-free controls were scanned once, and the subacute patients and controls were invited back for a second visit about a year later. The study found a smaller left accumbens volume in patients that was already present before pain became chronic, and a loss of slow-5 (0.01 to 0.027 Hz) resting-state power in the accumbens once pain was chronic. The paper deposited the demographic, clinical and imaging data from both visits in the OpenPain repository on 26 March 2020, together with the analysis code.

Composition

The study recruited 98 adults: 40 with subacute back pain (16 women), 28 with chronic low back pain (17 women) and 30 controls (14 women), with mean ages around 31 to 32 years per group. Subacute patients had pain of at least 20/100 for 6 to 16 weeks after a pain-free year; chronic patients had pain of at least 30/100 for a year or more. At follow-up, after a median of about 59 weeks, 35 subacute patients returned and 26 of them were scanned again, as were 14 of the controls. Returning patients were labelled persistent (16) or recovered (19) by a 30% drop in pain. Pain, mood and anxiety questionnaires were collected at each visit.

Acquisition

All scans were acquired on a Siemens 3T Trio with a 32-channel head coil. Each session had a 1 mm MPRAGE T1-weighted scan (TR 1900 ms, TE 2.52 ms, 176 slices) and two 6-minute resting-state fMRI runs with 2 mm isotropic voxels, TR 1000 ms and an acceleration factor of 4. Data were collected between July 2014 and April 2019.

Known limitations

Chronic patients have no follow-up visit, and fewer than half of the controls were rescanned. Pain levels at entry were low compared with many clinical studies. The paper reports group means and sex counts but no overall age range. The OpenPain portal requires registration, so the deposited files and their format were not checked for this entry.

Cohort

Aggregate numbers from the sources below. Bars are relative to the 98 subjects.

Sex

  • Female 47 100%

Covers 47 of 98 subjects.

Table S1 in Makary et al. 2020, PNAS, SI Appendix

Condition

Groups can overlap

  • Low back pain 68 69%
  • Healthy control 30 31%
    Age mean 31.1

Materials and Methods, Participants in Makary et al. 2020, PNAS 117(18):10015-10023

Country

  • United States 98 100%

Materials and Methods, Participants in Makary et al. 2020, PNAS 117(18):10015-10023

Contrast / sequence

Groups can overlap

  • T1-weighted 98 100%
  • BOLD fMRI 98 100%

Materials and Methods, Scanning Parameters in Makary et al. 2020, PNAS 117(18):10015-10023

Scanner vendor

  • Siemens Healthineers 98 100%

Materials and Methods, Scanning Parameters in Makary et al. 2020, PNAS 117(18):10015-10023

Field strength

  • 3 T 98 100%

Materials and Methods, Scanning Parameters in Makary et al. 2020, PNAS 117(18):10015-10023

Condition by sex

Reported cross table. A dot marks a cell the source does not give.

Female
Low back pain33
Healthy control14

Table S1 in Makary et al. 2020, PNAS, SI Appendix

Contrast combinations

How many subjects have exactly each set of contrasts.

T1wboldSubjects with exactly this set
98

Materials and Methods, Scanning Parameters in Makary et al. 2020, PNAS 117(18):10015-10023

License and access

Our reading of the license, not legal advice. Before you use the data, read the original license and confirm that your use is allowed. We take no responsibility for how you use a dataset. Full disclaimer

Access
Free registration

Create an account and accept terms online

Access page

OpenPain Data Use Agreement

Access after registering on the OpenPain site and accepting the agreement online. Use is limited to scientific investigation, teaching or planning clinical research. Data may not be disclosed beyond those uses, everyone who uses or receives them must follow the agreement, re-identification is forbidden and publications must acknowledge the OpenPain Project and its funders.

Original license text Version read: OpenPain Data Use Agreement web page, undated, read 2026-10-09 Checked 2026-10-09

What you can do

  • Conditional
  • Not stated
  • Not stated
  • Not stated
  • Conditional

What you can share

  • Conditional
  • Not stated
  • Share trained models Not stated

What you must do

  • Yes
  • Share alike No
  • Yes
  • Conditional
  • Manuscript review No
  • Release code No
  • No
  • Delete after use No

Limits

  • Yes
  • No

Citation

Makary MM, Polosecki P, Cecchi GA, DeAraujo IE, Barron DS, Constable TR, Whang PG, Thomas DA, Mowafi H, Small DM, Geha P. Loss of nucleus accumbens low-frequency fluctuations is a signature of chronic pain. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 117(18):10015-10023 (2020).

Sources

Every number on this page comes from one of these documents. Each chart names the table or page it is taken from. The raw numbers are in stats.csv.