Morphometric evaluation of cerebellar structures in late monocular blindness.

BACKGROUND

Only a few studies have investigated structural and functional changes in monocular blind individuals. Our aim in this study was to segmentally investigate the cerebellar structures of subjects with late-onset monocular blindness (LMB) using a Voxel-based volumetric analysis system.

METHODS

The segmental volumetric values, cortical thickness, gray matter volumes and percentage ratios of the cerebellar lobules of individuals with LMB due to trauma and in healthy individuals with bilateral sight as the control group were calculated at the volBrain CERES 1.0 website ( https://volbrain.upv.es/ ) by using brain 3D fast spoiled gradient recall acquisition in steady-state (3D T1 FSPGR) MRI sequence images in our prospective study.

RESULTS

We studied 11 subjects with LMB (8 males/3 females) and 11 healthy control subjects (8 males/3 females). The mean age was 41.45 ± 14.15 and 40 ± 11.11 years, respectively (p > 0.05). The mean duration of the LMB status was 20.8 ± 11.2 years. Cerebellar lobule crus II volume and cerebellar lobule VIIB/VIIIA volume/percentage were higher in the LMB group, and mean cerebellar cortical thickness, cerebellar lobule VI-cerebellar lobule crus I-II cortical thickness, and cerebellar lobule VI gray matter volume values were lower in the LMB group (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

In this study, cerebellar lobule VIIB/VIIIA volume/total percent ratio, cerebellar cortical thickness and cerebellar gray matter volume in the LMB group were found to be different from the control group. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report cerebellar anatomical changes in patients with LMB.