Pan Ningning, Zheng Ke, Zhao Yanna, Zhang Dan, Dong Changxu, Xu Junhai, Li Xianglin, Zheng Yuanjie
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
Master of Public Administration Education Center, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Xinjiang, China.
Front Neurosci. 2021 Nov 4;15:715749. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.715749. eCollection 2021.
The detailed morphometry alterations of the human hippocampal formation (HF) for blind individuals are still understudied. 50 subjects were recruited from Yantai Affiliated Hospital of Binzhou Medical University, including 16 congenital blindness, 14 late blindness, and 20 sighted controls. Volume and shape analysis were conducted between the blind (congenital or late) and sighted groups to observe the (sub)regional alterations of the HF. No significant difference of the hippocampal volume was observed between the blind and sighted subjects. Rightward asymmetry of the hippocampal volume was found for both congenital and late blind individuals, while no significant hemispheric difference was observed for the sighted controls. Shape analysis showed that the superior and inferior parts of both the hippocampal head and tail expanded, while the medial and lateral parts constrained for the blind individuals as compared to the sighted controls. The morphometry alterations for the congenital blind and late blind individuals are nearly the same. Significant expansion of the superior part of the hippocampal tail for both congenital and late blind groups were observed for the left hippocampi after FDR correction. Current results suggest that the cross-model plastic may occur in both hemispheres of the HF to improve the navigation ability without the stimuli of visual cues, and the alteration is more prominent for the left hemisphere.
对于盲人个体，人类海马结构（HF）的详细形态测量学改变仍未得到充分研究。从滨州医学院烟台附属医院招募了50名受试者，包括16名先天性盲人、14名后天性盲人以及20名有视力的对照者。对盲人（先天性或后天性）组和有视力组进行了体积和形状分析，以观察HF的（亚）区域改变。在盲人和有视力的受试者之间未观察到海马体积的显著差异。先天性和后天性盲人个体均发现海马体积存在右侧不对称，而有视力的对照者未观察到明显的半球差异。形状分析表明，与有视力的对照者相比，盲人个体的海马头部和尾部的上部和下部均扩大，而中部和外侧部则受限。先天性盲人和后天性盲人个体的形态测量学改变几乎相同。在错误发现率（FDR）校正后，先天性和后天性盲人组的左侧海马尾部上部均出现显著扩大。目前的结果表明，在没有视觉线索刺激的情况下，HF的两个半球可能会发生跨模式可塑性以提高导航能力，并且这种改变在左半球更为明显。
