Investigating the neurophysiological correlates of autobiographical memory in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christoph Nikendei
• Subject Area: Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 504144073

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by chronic fatigue, sleep issues and a decline in cognitive functioning. FMS leads to a considerable psychological burden with severe impairments in everyday-life. Accordingly, depression and health-related anxiety are commonly observed in patients with FMS. Cognitive difficulties, often referred to as “fibro fog”, have been found to impair autobiographical memory in FMS. Encoding of emotional biographical experiences as so-called unspecific or over-generalized autobiographical memories (OGM) represent a well-known emotion regulation strategy in affective disorders. In FMS, selective attention to pain-related stimuli and subsequent hyperactivation of emotional networks could be a possible underlying mechanism for pain chronicity as well as cognitive dysfunction. Accordingly, we expect pain-related OGM to act as an emotional regulation strategy in FMS in terms of functional avoidance therefore contributing to the maintenance of pain in FMS. The aim of the proposed research project is to investigate the neural correlates of AM and OGM in patients with FMS. To this end, a total of 55 patients (FMS) will be compared with 55 healthy control subjects using a functional neuroimaging procedure with an experimental AM-task. This will allow us to assess activation and connectivity of brain regions involved in executive and emotional processing during painrelated AM processing in FMS. We believe that the results of this study may complement current theories related to the development and maintenance of FMS.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Privatdozent Joe Jacques Simon, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Jonas Tesarz