Abstract
Previous studies have revealed brain adaptations to injury that occurs in optic neuritis (ON); however, the mechanisms underlying the functional connectivity (FC) and gray matter volume (GMV) changes in ON have not been clarified. Here, 51 single attack ON patients and 45 recurrent attacks ON patients were examined using structural MRI and resting-state functional MRI (RS-fMRI), and compared to 49 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HC). FC analysis with a seed in primary visual cortex (V1 area) was used to assess the differences among three groups. Whole brain GMV was assessed using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Correlation analyses were performed between FC results, structural MRI and clinical variables. We found positive correlations between the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) score and FC in V1 area with bilateral middle frontal gyrus. Disease duration is significantly negatively related to FC in V1 area with the left inferior parietal lobule. Compared to the HC, single attack ON patients were found to have decreased FC values in the frontal, temporal lobes, right inferior occipital gyrus, right insula, right inferior parietal lobule, and significant increased FC values in the left thalamus. Recurrent attacks ON patients had the same pattern with single attack ON. No significant differences were found in brain GMV among three groups. This study provides the imaging evidence that impairment and compensation of V1 area connectivity coexist in ON patients, and provides important insights into the underlying neural mechanisms of ON.
Highlights
Optic neuritis (ON) is an inflammatorydemyelination disease of optic nerves, which is the leading cause of vision loss in young adults (Pau et al, 2011)
In the two groups of ON patients, we examined the correlations between disease duration, Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT), visual acuity and the extent of altered V1 area functional connectivity (FC)
We explored the differences in gray matter volume (GMV) and FC between ON patients and healthy controls (HC) using both voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and RS-FC methods
Summary
Optic neuritis (ON) is an inflammatorydemyelination disease of optic nerves, which is the leading cause of vision loss in young adults (Pau et al, 2011). The VBM and FC methods have been widely used in the studies of inflammatory demyelination diseases of the central nervous system, such as neuromyelitis optica and multiple sclerosis (Rombouts et al, 1998; Henry et al, 2008; Blanc et al, 2012; Duan et al, 2014). We combined the VBM method with the seed correlation method to explore the primary visual cortex (V1 area) and the whole brain FC changes in patients with single and recurrent attacks ON, (1) assessing the differences in gray matter volume (GMV) and FC between the three groups, (2) exploring the correlation between the FC measurements and the clinical assessments, and the structural MRI variables, and (3) investigating the mechanisms underlying the FC changes in single and recurrent attacks ON patients. This study represents the first attempt to explore the changes in brain structure and FC in two types of ON patients
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