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. 2020 Apr 16:2020:8060869.
doi: 10.1155/2020/8060869. eCollection 2020.

Enhanced Gray Matter Volume Compensates for Decreased Brain Activity in the Ocular Motor Area in Children with Anisometropic Amblyopia

Weizhao Lu  1 , Xueliang Yu  2 , Lisheng Zhao  3 , Yanli Zhang  3 , Feng Zhao  2 , Yi Wang  4 , Jianfeng Qiu  1
Affiliations

Enhanced Gray Matter Volume Compensates for Decreased Brain Activity in the Ocular Motor Area in Children with Anisometropic Amblyopia

Weizhao Lu et al. Neural Plast. .

Abstract

Purpose: Anisometropic amblyopia usually occurs during early childhood and results in monocular visual deficit. Recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated structural and functional alterations in pediatric anisometropic amblyopia (PAA) patients. However, the relationship between structural and functional alterations remains largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between structural and functional alterations in PAA patients.

Materials and methods: Eighteen PAA patients and 14 healthy children underwent a multimodal MRI scanning including T1WI and functional MRI (fMRI). Voxel-based morphometry was used to assess structural alterations between PAA patients and healthy children. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) was used to investigate changes in local spontaneous brain activity in the enrolled subjects. Correlations between structural, functional alterations, and clinical information were analyzed in the PAA group.

Results: Compared with healthy children, PAA patients exhibited significantly reduced ReHo of spontaneous brain activity in the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) and right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and increased gray matter volume in the right lobules 4 and 5 of the cerebellum. The gray matter volume of the right lobules 4 and 5 of the cerebellum was negatively correlated with the ReHo values of the right MFG.

Conclusions: Our findings may suggest that PAA patients experience structural and functional abnormalities in brain regions related to oculomotor and visual-spatial information. In addition, the increased gray matter volume may compensate the decreased brain activity in the oculomotor regions, which reflects compensatory or neural plasticity in PAA patients.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Comparisons in ReHo values between healthy controls and PAA patients (p < 0.001). (a) Comparisons of the whole-brain ReHo maps. (b) Comparison of ReHo values in the right STG. (c) Comparison of ReHo values in the right MFG. ES: effect size. The error bar represents mean ± standard deviation.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Comparisons in gray matter volume between healthy controls and PAA patients (p < 0.001). (a) Comparisons of the whole-brain gray matter volume. (b) Comparison of the gray matter volume in the right lobules 4 and 5 of the cerebellum. ES: effect size. The error bar represents mean ± standard variation.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Correlation between the gray matter volume in the right lobules 4 and 5 of the cerebellum and ReHo values in the right MFG. The area between the dashed lines is the 95% confidence interval.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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