Clinical Treatment of Functional Pain Syndromes along the Microbiome-Gut-Brain-Axis: Combined Approach with Neuromodulation-Neurofeedback and Multispecies Probiotic
Functional pain syndromes are very common diseases that negatively impact the quality of life of patients with important socio-economic repercussions. The clinical alterations associated with these pathologies are multiple and have a complex psycho-organic character that moves along the micorobiome-gut-brain-axis. For the present study, 45 patients of both sexes (19 male, 26 female) aged 30 - 59 years were enrolled because of a diagnosis of Functional pain syndromes (FPS) that lasted for more than 6 months. All patients underwent pre-treatment clinical assessments (T0) for anxiety disorder, multidimensional assessment of pain, monitoring of baseline values of Alpha-Theta cerebral rhythm in occipital region and monitoring of salivary cortisol levels. All the patients underwent a clinical treatment combined with central neuromodulation with neurofeedback—Alpha Theta increase protocols (once a week for three months), administration of multispecies probiotic (one dose per day for 3 months) and clinical psychological interviews (once a week for three months). At the end of treatment (T1), patients were re-evaluated. Results show statistically relevant improvements of each feature considered: the Relief from Pain provided by the medication increases on average from 36.6% to 87.3%, the salivary Cortisol level at 11 pm decreases from 6.4 ng/ml to a physiological value of 1.2 ng/ml, and the anxiety rating score is reduced from 28 to 12. Moreover, the 23.9% increase in α-θ relative power shows the positive outcome of the brain autoregulation. This study highlights that the combined approach of Neurofeedback with drugs and multispecies probiotic results in great improvements in the patients’ life.
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