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| Brain Structure Changes Found in Irritable Bowel Patients -- MedLinePlus
Women with irritable bowel syndrome have increases and decreases in gray matter density in areas of the brain that play a role in attention, emotion regulation, pain inhibition and the processing of information from the gut. Similar brain structural changes have been noted in patients with pain disorders such as lower back pain, migraines and hip pain. In the study, American and Canadian researchers used medical imaging to analyze anatomical differences in the brains of 55 female IBS patients and 48 women without IBS. The IBS patients had increases and decreases of gray matter in specific cortical brain regions involved in cognitive and evaluative functions, the investigators found. |