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Altered interhemispheric functional connectivity in patients with anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia: a resting-state fMRI study

  • Functional Neuroradiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Altered brain functional connectivity has been reported in patients with amblyopia by recent neuroimaging studies. However, relatively little is known about the alterations in interhemispheric functional connectivity in amblyopia. The present study aimed to investigate the functional connectivity patterns between homotopic regions across hemispheres in patients with anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia under resting state.

Methods

Nineteen monocular anisometropic amblyopia (AA), 18 strabismic amblyopia (SA), and 20 normal-sight controls (NC) were enrolled in this study. After a comprehensive ophthalmologic examination, resting-state fMRI scanning was performed in all participants. The pattern of the interhemispheric functional connectivity was measured with the voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) approach. VMHC values differences within and between three groups were compared, and correlations between VMHC values and each the clinical variable were also analyzed.

Results

Altered VMHC was observed in AA and SA patients in lingual gyrus and fusiform gyrus compared with NC subjects. The altered VMHC of lingual gyrus showed a pattern of AA > SA > NC, while the altered VMHC of fusiform gyrus showed a pattern of AA > NC > SA. Moreover, the VMHC values of lingual gyrus were positively correlated with the stereoacuity both in AA and SA patients, and the VMHC values of fusiform gyrus were positively correlated with the amount of anisometropia just in AA patients.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that interhemispheric functional coordination between several homotopic visual-related brain regions is impaired both in AA and SA patients under resting state and revealed the similarities and differences in interhemispheric functional connectivity between the anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia.

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Abbreviations

AA:

Anisometropic amblyopia

SA:

Strabismic amblyopia

NC:

Normal-sight controls

rs-fMRI:

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance

RSFC:

Resting-state functional connectivity

VMHC:

Voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity

cVA:

Corrected visual acuity

GRF:

Gaussian random field

FFA:

Fusiform face area

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Author information

Author notes

  1. ML and BX are joint first authors and contributed equally to this study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, 30 Gaotanyan Street, Shapingba District, Chongqing, 400038, People’s Republic of China

    Minglong Liang, Bing Xie, Xuntao Yin, Longhua Yu & Jian Wang

  2. Ophthalmology Research Center, Southwest Eye Hospital/Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China

    Hong Yang & Hao Wang

  3. Department of Radiology, 401st Hospital of PLA, Qingdao, China

    Longhua Yu

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Sheng He

Authors
  1. Minglong Liang
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  2. Bing Xie
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  3. Hong Yang
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  4. Xuntao Yin
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  5. Hao Wang
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  8. Jian Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jian Wang.

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Funding

No funding was received for this study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in the studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Southwest Hospital Ethics Committee and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Liang, M., Xie, B., Yang, H. et al. Altered interhemispheric functional connectivity in patients with anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia: a resting-state fMRI study. Neuroradiology 59, 517–524 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-017-1824-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-017-1824-0

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