Abstract
BackgroundPrevious studies have demonstrated that strabismus amblyopia can result in markedly brain function alterations. However, the differences in spontaneous brain activities of strabismus amblyopia (SA) patients still remain unclear. Therefore, the current study intended to employthe voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) method to investigate the intrinsic brain activity changes in SA patients.PurposeTo investigate the changes in cerebral hemispheric functional connections in patients with SA and their relationship with clinical manifestations using the VMHC method.Material and methodsIn the present study, a total of 17 patients with SA (eight males and nine females) and 17 age- and weight-matched healthy control (HC) groups were enrolled. Based on the VMHC method, all subjects were examined by functional magnetic resonance imaging. The functional interaction between cerebral hemispheres was directly evaluated. The Pearson’s correlation test was used to analyze the clinical features of patients with SA. In addition, their mean VMHC signal values and the receiver operating characteristic curve were used to distinguish patients with SA and HC groups.ResultsCompared with HC group, patients with SA had higher VMHC values in bilateral cingulum ant, caudate, hippocampus, and cerebellum crus 1. Moreover, the VMHC values of some regions were positively correlated with some clinical manifestations. In addition, receiver operating characteristic curves presented higher diagnostic value in these areas.ConclusionSA subjects showed abnormal brain interhemispheric functional connectivity in visual pathways, which might give some instructive information for understanding the neurological mechanisms of SA patients.
Highlights
Amblyopia is the decline of monocular or binocular best-corrected visual acuity caused by abnormal visual experience during visual development [1, 2]
Correlation analysis In the strabismus amblyopia (SA) group, the esotropia deviations exhibited a positive correlation with the voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) values of the bilateral cerebellum crus 1 (r = 0.588; P < 0.05)
The hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) scores showed a positive correlation with the VMHC values of the cingulum ant (r = 0.907; P < 0.001), there existed no significant correlation between other brain regions with VMHC changes and HADS scores (r = 0.228 ~ 0.479, P > 0.05).(see Fig. 3)
Summary
Amblyopia is the decline of monocular or binocular best-corrected visual acuity caused by abnormal visual experience during visual development [1, 2]. Strabismus is an eye movement disorder that can impair stereoscopic vision [5]. SA is a syndrome usually caused by uncorrected misalignment of the visual axis. It is described as defects in stereoscopic depth perception and visual sensitivity [6], as well as damage in spatial positioning, gaze, eyeball movement and adjustment [7]. Previous studies have demonstrated that strabismus amblyopia can result in markedly brain function alterations. The current study intended to employthe voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) method to investigate the intrinsic brain activity changes in SA patients. Purpose: To investigate the changes in cerebral hemispheric functional connections in patients with SA and their relationship with clinical manifestations using the VMHC method
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