Cio F Di, Garaci F, Minosse S, Passamonti L, Martucci A, Lanzafame S, Giuliano F Di, Picchi E, Mancino R, Guerrisi M, Nucci C, Floris R, Toschi N
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2020 Jul;2020:1705-1708. doi: 10.1109/EMBC44109.2020.9175417.
Primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) is one of the most common causes of permanent blindness in the world. Recent studies have originated the hypothesis that POAG could be considered as a central nervous system pathology which results in secondary visual involvement. The aim of this study is to assess possible structural whole brain connectivity alterations in POAG by combining multi-shell diffusion weighted imaging, multi-shell multi-tissue probabilistic tractography, graph theoretical measures and a newly designed disruption index, which evaluates the global reorganization of brain networks in group-wise comparisons. We found global differences in structural connectivity between Glaucoma patients and controls, as well as in local graph theoretical measures. These changes extended well beyond the primary visual pathway. Furthermore, group-wise and subject-wise disruption indices were found to be statistically different between glaucoma patients and controls, with a positive slope. Overall, our results support the hypothesis of a whole-brain structural reorganization in glaucoma which is specific to structural connectivity, possibly placing this disease within the recently defined groups of brain disconnection syndrome.
原发性开角型青光眼（POAG）是全球永久性失明的最常见原因之一。最近的研究提出了一种假说，即POAG可被视为一种导致继发性视力受累的中枢神经系统疾病。本研究的目的是通过结合多壳扩散加权成像、多壳多组织概率纤维束成像、图论测量和一种新设计的破坏指数来评估POAG患者可能存在的全脑结构连接改变，该指数在组间比较中评估脑网络的整体重组。我们发现青光眼患者与对照组在结构连接以及局部图论测量方面存在整体差异。这些变化远远超出了初级视觉通路。此外，青光眼患者与对照组之间的组间和个体破坏指数在统计学上存在差异，且呈正斜率。总体而言，我们的结果支持青光眼存在全脑结构重组的假说，这种重组特定于结构连接，可能将这种疾病归入最近定义的脑连接中断综合征组。
