Altered spontaneous brain activity in patients with diabetic optic neuropathy: A resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study using regional homogeneity

Abstract

BACKGROUND Diabetes is a common chronic disease. Given the increasing incidence of diabetes, more individuals are affected by diabetic optic neuropathy (DON), which results in decreased vision. Whether DON leads to abnormalities of other visual systems, including the eye, the visual cortex, and other brain regions, remains unknown. AIM To investigate the local characteristics of spontaneous brain activity using regional homogeneity (ReHo) in patients with DON. METHODS We matched 22 patients with DON with 22 healthy controls (HCs). All subjects underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The ReHo technique was used to record spontaneous changes in brain activity. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were applied to differentiate between ReHo values for patients with DON and HCs. We also assessed the correlation between Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale scores and ReHo values in DON patients using Pearson correlation analysis. RESULTS ReHo values of the right middle frontal gyrus (RMFG), left anterior cingulate (LAC), and superior frontal gyrus (SFG)/left frontal superior orbital gyrus (LFSO) were significantly lower in DON patients compared to HCs. Among these, the greatest difference was observed in the RMFG. The result of the ROC curves suggest that ReHo values in altered brain regions may help diagnose DON, and the RMFG and LAC ReHo values are more clinically relevant than SFG/LFSO. We also found that anxiety and depression scores of the DON group were extremely negatively correlated with the LAC ReHo values ( r = -0.9336, P < 0.0001 and r = -0.8453, P < 0.0001, respectively). CONCLUSION Three different brain regions show ReHo changes in DON patients, and these changes could serve as diagnostic and/or prognostic biomarkers to further guide the prevention and treatment of DON patients.

Hyperintensities of middle frontal gyrus in patients with diabetic optic neuropathy: a dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation study

“…Alterations of cortical signals can be used to locate cortical functional areas and further study brain functions [ 32 ]. Recently, a lot of rs-fMRI methods were used to observe the brain activities in DON patients, like degree centrality [ 33 ], functional connection density [ 34 ], regional homogeneity [ 35 ] and voxel mirrored homotopic connectivity [ 36 ] methods (details in Table 3 ). This study is the first to use the dALFF method which was ALFF combined with sliding window to reveal the temporal variability of regional intrinsic cerebrum activities in DON patients.…”

Analysis of Brain Activity Changes in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease Based on Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

“…MRI (RS-fMRI) research has become a hot spot. RS-fMRI is an imaging technique that explores changes in the function of the whole brain and its functional connections [ 7 ]. The imaging principle is as follows: when the activity of neurons in the local brain area increases, it causes an increase in local oxygen consumption.…”

Regional Homogeneity in Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

“…Regional homogeneity (ReHo) is a technique for analyzing rs-fMRI results that has been normally applied in clinical practice. Recent studies on the application of the ReHo method to analyze neuroimaging changes are shown in Table 1 (Tononi et al, 1998 ; Xiang et al, 2018 ; Liao et al, 2019 ; Shao et al, 2019 ; Wen et al, 2019 ; Li et al, 2020 ; Guo et al, 2021 ). By calculating the Kendall coefficient consistency of voxel dynamic fluctuation time-series in a specific cluster, the local synchronization of spontaneous rs-fMRI signals is explored, which represents essential data for normal brain activity ( Fang et al, 2021 ; Gaubert et al, 2021 ).…”