News Finding: "This intriguing data supports the idea that rheumatoid arthritis inflammation targets the brain and not just the joints," Basu says.
Paper Finding: It will be important to expand assessment in future studies to more diverse measures of neuropsychological performance and to clinical symptoms of RA, as these will likely involve their own distinct patterns of functional connectivity.
News Context: It also demonstrated how inflammation we measure in the periphery may be actually altering functional connections in the brain and playing a role in some of the cognitive symptoms we see in rheumatoid arthritis." "This intriguing data supports the idea that rheumatoid arthritis inflammation targets the brain and not just the joints," Basu says. "By relating these advanced neuroimaging measures back to the patient experience, we provide evidence that the future targeting of central inflammatory pathways may greatly enhance the quality of life of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and potentially other chronic inflammatory disorders."
Paper Context: It is perhaps unsurprising that the subnetworks not identified in the current study are generally associated with tasks dissimilar to the PASAT, such as fine motor skills and language processing. It will be important to expand assessment in future studies to more diverse measures of neuropsychological performance and to clinical symptoms of RA, as these will likely involve their own distinct patterns of functional connectivity. Future studies in RA and other chronic inflammatory conditions should explore sexspecific differences in the impact of inflammation on neural networks as there is evidence for these differences in acute inflammatory paradigms .