Malladi Sarala N, Skerswetat Jan, Tootell Roger B H, Gaier Eric D, Bex Peter, Hunter David G, Nasr Shahin
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States.
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, United States.
bioRxiv. 2024 Jun 8:2024.06.05.597579. doi: 10.1101/2024.06.05.597579.
Amblyopia is a developmental disorder associated with reduced performance in visually guided tasks, including binocular navigation within natural environments. To help understand the underlying neurological disorder, we used fMRI to test the impact of amblyopia on the functional organization of scene-selective cortical areas, including the posterior intraparietal gyrus scene-selective (PIGS) area, a recently discovered region that responds selectively to ego-motion within naturalistic environments (Kennedy et al., 2024). Nineteen amblyopic adults (10 female) and thirty age-matched controls (12 female) participated in this study. Amblyopic participants spanned a wide range of amblyopia severity, based on their interocular visual acuity difference and stereoacuity. The visual function questionnaire (VFQ-39) was used to assess the participants' perception of their visual capabilities. Compared to controls, we found weaker scene-selective activity within the PIGS area in amblyopic individuals. By contrast, the level of scene-selective activity across the occipital place area (OPA), parahippocampal place area (PPA), and retrosplenial cortex (RSC)) remained comparable between amblyopic and control participants. The subjects' scores on "general vision" (VFQ-39 subscale) correlated with the level of scene-selective activity in PIGS. These results provide novel and direct evidence for amblyopia-related changes in scene-processing networks, thus enabling future studies to potentially link these changes across the spectrum of documented disabilities in amblyopia.
弱视是一种发育障碍，与视觉引导任务中的表现下降有关，包括在自然环境中的双眼导航。为了帮助理解潜在的神经障碍，我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来测试弱视对场景选择性皮质区域功能组织的影响，包括顶内后回场景选择性（PIGS）区域，这是一个最近发现的区域，在自然主义环境中对自我运动有选择性反应（肯尼迪等人，2024年）。19名弱视成年人（10名女性）和30名年龄匹配的对照组（12名女性）参与了这项研究。根据弱视参与者的双眼视力差异和立体视锐度，他们的弱视严重程度范围很广。视觉功能问卷（VFQ - 39）用于评估参与者对其视觉能力的感知。与对照组相比，我们发现弱视个体的PIGS区域内场景选择性活动较弱。相比之下，枕叶位置区域（OPA）、海马旁位置区域（PPA）和压后皮质（RSC）的场景选择性活动水平在弱视参与者和对照组之间保持相当。受试者在“总体视力”（VFQ - 39子量表）上的得分与PIGS区域的场景选择性活动水平相关。这些结果为弱视相关的场景处理网络变化提供了新的直接证据，从而使未来的研究有可能将这些变化与弱视中已记录的各种残疾联系起来。
