Wang Huihui, Wen Hongwei, Li Jing, Chen Qian, Li Shanshan, Wang Zhenchang
Department of Radiology, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Department of Radiology, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Front Neurosci. 2023 Jun 22;17:1158928. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1158928. eCollection 2023.
High myopia (HM) is a public health issue that can lead to severe visual impairment. Previous studies have exhibited widespread white matter (WM) integrity damage in HM patients. However, how these WM damages are topologically related, and the network-level structural disruptions underlying HM has not been fully defined. We aimed to assess the alterations of brain WM structural networks in HM patients using diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) and tractography in the present study.
Individual whole-brain and ROI-level WM networks were constructed using DKI tractography in 30 HM patients and 33 healthy controls. Graph theory analysis was then applied to explore the altered global and regional network topological properties. Pearson correlations between regional properties and disease duration in the HM group were also assessed.
For global topology, although both groups showed a small-world network organization, HM patients exhibited significant decreased local efficiency and clustering coefficient compared with controls. For regional topology, HM patients and controls showed highly similar hub distributions, except for three additional hub regions in HM patients including left insula, anterior cingulate and paracingulate gyri (ACG), and median cingulate and paracingulate gyri (DCG). In addition, HM patients showed significantly altered nodal betweenness centrality (BC) mainly in the bilateral inferior occipital gyrus (IOG), left superior occipital gyrus (SOG), caudate nucleus, rolandic operculum and right putamen, pallidum, and gyrus rectus compared with controls. Intriguingly, the nodal BC of left IOG was negatively correlated with disease duration in HM patients.
Our findings suggest that HM exhibited alterations in WM structural networks as indicated by decreased local specialization. This study may advance the current understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying HM.
高度近视（HM）是一个可导致严重视力损害的公共卫生问题。先前的研究已显示高度近视患者存在广泛的白质（WM）完整性损害。然而，这些白质损害在拓扑结构上是如何关联的，以及高度近视背后的网络水平结构破坏尚未完全明确。在本研究中，我们旨在使用扩散峰度成像（DKI）和纤维束成像来评估高度近视患者脑白质结构网络的改变。
在30例高度近视患者和33例健康对照中，使用DKI纤维束成像构建个体全脑和感兴趣区域（ROI）水平的白质网络。然后应用图论分析来探索改变的全局和区域网络拓扑特性。还评估了高度近视组中区域特性与病程之间的Pearson相关性。
对于全局拓扑结构，尽管两组均显示出小世界网络组织，但与对照组相比，高度近视患者的局部效率和聚类系数显著降低。对于区域拓扑结构，高度近视患者和对照组显示出高度相似的枢纽分布，但高度近视患者有三个额外的枢纽区域，包括左侧岛叶皮质、前扣带回和旁扣带回（ACG）以及中央扣带回和旁扣带回（DCG）。此外，与对照组相比，高度近视患者主要在双侧枕下回（IOG）、左侧枕上回（SOG）、尾状核、中央沟盖以及右侧壳核、苍白球和直回处的节点介数中心性（BC）有显著改变。有趣的是，高度近视患者左侧枕下回的节点BC与病程呈负相关。
我们的研究结果表明，高度近视表现为白质结构网络改变，表现为局部特异性降低。本研究可能会推进目前对高度近视病理生理机制的理解。
