Abstract
Evidences have showed that the deprivation of vision can considerably alter the resting-state activity both within and beyond the visual cortices. However, the functional changes of the brain cortices related to partially vision-deprivation are still largely unknown. Using resting-state functional MR imaging, we quantitatively evaluated the regional homogeneity(ReHo) and functional connectivity(FC) changes between 25 pituitary adenoma patients with visual impairment and 25 healthy controls(HCs). Compared with HCs, PAs exhibited significant increased ReHo in the left superior occipital gyrus, bilateral middle occipital gyrus and reduced ReHo in the left inferior frontal gyrus and right middle temporal gyrus. PAs also showed decreased FC between vision-related area and higher-order cognitive brain areas. Furthermore, we identified that in the PAs group the FC between the left V1 and left V3 increased while the FC between left V2v and left V5 significantly decreased, the FC between left V4 area and the V3, V2d area increased. In our study, we identified that the ReHo and FC were altered between the vision-related cortices and other higher-order cognitive cortices along with disorganized functional connectivity within the visual system in PAs with visual impairment. These findings may provide important insights to understand the plasticity of visual network.
Highlights
Primary sensory cortices and other brain regions can undergo functional and structural reorganizations due to the damage of a particular sensory modality, which are referred to as compensatory plasticity[1]
We hope to explore the alterations of local synchronization and functional connectivity in pituitary adenoma patients(PAs) with visual impairment by using resting-state functional MR imaging(rs-fMRI)
The results showed significant vision-related cortex subareas within the visual cortex functional connectivity (FC) and ReHo alterations
Summary
Primary sensory cortices and other brain regions can undergo functional and structural reorganizations due to the damage of a particular sensory modality, which are referred to as compensatory plasticity[1]. The researchers investigated the alterations of one pituitary adenoma patient before and after the chiasm decompression using functional magnetic resonance image(fMRI) techniques[10] They found that the visual cortex of the affected eye activation area decreased compared with the normal side, and returned to normal after the surgical decompression of the chiasm. Another study explored the changes of brain resting-state activity related to vision in pituitary adenoma patients, their findings showed significant functional changes in the vision-related cortex of pituitary adenoma patients, within and beyond the visual cortices[11] These studies only focused on the visual cortex and its subareas, the functional changes of the cortical visual processing pathway were not further investigated. We hope to explore the alterations of local synchronization and functional connectivity in pituitary adenoma patients(PAs) with visual impairment by using resting-state functional MR imaging(rs-fMRI)
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