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. 2022 Aug 12:13:967794.
doi: 10.3389/fneur.2022.967794. eCollection 2022.

Children with strabismus and amblyopia presented abnormal spontaneous brain activities measured through fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF)

Xiao-Qin Hu  1 , Yi-Dan Shi  2 , Jun Chen  3 , Zhipeng You  1 , Yi-Cong Pan  2 , Qian Ling  2 , Hong Wei  2 , Jie Zou  2 , Ping Ying  2 , Xu-Lin Liao  4 , Ting Su  5 , Yi-Xin Wang  6 , Yi Shao  2
Affiliations

Children with strabismus and amblyopia presented abnormal spontaneous brain activities measured through fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF)

Xiao-Qin Hu et al. Front Neurol. .

Abstract

Purpose: Based on fMRI technology, we explored whether children with strabismus and amblyopia (SA) showed significant change in fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) values in specific brain regions compared with healthy controls and whether this change could point to the clinical manifestations and pathogenesis of children with strabismus to a certain extent.

Methods: We enrolled 23 children with SA and the same number matched healthy controls in the ophthalmology department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, and the whole brain was scanned by rs-fMRI. The fALFF value of each brain area was derived to examine whether there is a statistical difference between the two groups. Meanwhile, the ROC curve was made in a view to evaluate whether this difference proves useful as a diagnostic index. Finally, we analyzed whether changes in the fALFF value of some specific brain regions are related to clinical manifestations.

Results: Compared with HCs, children with SA presented decreased fALFF values in the left temporal pole: the superior temporal gyrus, right middle temporal gyrus, right superior frontal gyrus, and right supplementary motor area. Meanwhile, they also showed higher fALFF values in specific brain areas, which included the left precentral gyrus, left inferior parietal, and left precuneus.

Conclusion: Children with SA showed abnormal fALFF values in different brain regions. Most of these regions were allocated to the visual formation pathway, the eye movement-related pathway, or other visual-related pathways, suggesting the pathological mechanism of the patient.

Keywords: amblyopia; children; fALFF; strabismus; visual pathway.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Spontaneous brain activity in children and HCs. (A) The brain regions presented sensible differences in fAlFF values between SA and HCs. (B) Children with SA would be observed some abnormal brain activities in specific regions. Compared with HCs, red regions trend to mean higher fALFF values. Regions marked by blue presented delegated regions presenting decreased fALFF values. fALFF, fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation; HCs, healthy controls; SA, strabismus and amblyopia.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The mean fALFF values between children with SA and HCs.
Figure 3
Figure 3
ROC curve analysis for the mean fALFF values of altered brain regions. (A) The area under ROC curve was 0.745 for Temporal-Pole-Sup-L (p = 0.005, 95%CI:0.603–0.887); 0.755 for Temporal-Mid-R (p = 0.003, 95%CI:0.621–0.898); 0.887 for Frontal-Sup-R (p < 0.001, 95%CI: 0.787–0.988); 0.773 for Supp-Motor-Area-R (p = 0.002, 95%CI: 0.635–0.910). (B) The area under ROC curve was 0.69 for Precentral-L (p = 0.001, 95%CI:0.659–0.930); 0.68 for Parietal-L (p < 0.001, 95%CI: 0.675–0.941); 0.73 for Precuneus-L (p = 0.003, 95%CI: 0.616–0.902).
Figure 4
Figure 4
The result of correlation analysis. The values of LogMAR(BCVA-R) of PAT presented a significant correlation with the fALFF values of Temporal-Pole-Sup-L. The scores of HADS showed a negative correlation with fALFF values of temporal_mid_R (r = −0.535, p = 0.009).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Increase and decrease areas of flaff of children with SA.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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