Wen Zhi, Kang Yan, Zhang Yu, Yang Huaguang, Xie Baojun
Department of Radiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, National Center for Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Jun 27;16:935642. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.935642. eCollection 2022.
Congenital nystagmus in infants and young children can lead to early blindness (EB). Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that EB is accompanied by alterations in brain structure and function. However, the effects of visual impairment and critical developmental periods on brain functional connectivity at rest have been unclear. Here, we used the voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) method to explore the underlying functional network brain activity in adolescents with EB. Twenty-one patients with EBs and 21 sighted controls (SCs) underwent magnetic resonance imaging. Differences between the two groups were assessed using the DC method. Moreover, the support vector machine (SVM) method was used to differentiate patients with EB patients from the SCs according to DC values. Compared with the SCs, the patients with EB had increased DC values in the bilateral cerebellum_6, cerebellum vermis_4_5, bilateral supplementary motor areas (SMA), and left fusiform gyrus; the patients with EB had decreased DC values in the bilateral rectal gyrus and left medial orbital frontal gyrus. The SVM classification of the DC values achieved an overall accuracy of 70.45% and an area under the curve of 0.86 in distinguishing between the patients with EB and the SCs. Our study may reveal the neuromechanism of neuroplasticity in EB; the findings provide an imaging basis for future development of restorative visual therapies and sensory substitution devices, and future assessments of visual rehabilitation efficacy.
婴幼儿先天性眼球震颤可导致早期失明（EB）。先前的神经影像学研究表明，EB伴有脑结构和功能的改变。然而，视觉障碍和关键发育时期对静息态脑功能连接的影响尚不清楚。在此，我们使用体素级中心度（DC）方法来探索患有EB的青少年潜在的脑功能网络活动。21例EB患者和21名视力正常对照者（SCs）接受了磁共振成像检查。使用DC方法评估两组之间的差异。此外，支持向量机（SVM）方法用于根据DC值区分EB患者和SCs。与SCs相比，EB患者在双侧小脑_6、小脑蚓部_4_5、双侧辅助运动区（SMA）和左侧梭状回的DC值增加；EB患者在双侧直回和左侧眶内侧额叶回的DC值降低。DC值的SVM分类在区分EB患者和SCs时的总体准确率为70.45%，曲线下面积为0.86。我们的研究可能揭示了EB中神经可塑性的神经机制；这些发现为恢复性视觉治疗和感觉替代装置的未来发展以及未来视觉康复疗效评估提供了影像学依据。
