Atrophy of the lateral geniculate nucleus in human glaucoma detected by magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract

Aim: To determine in vivo whether the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) undergoes atrophy in patients with glaucoma and vision loss compared with normal subjects. Methods: Following institutional St Michael's Hospital Research Ethics Board approval, a prospective and masked neuroimaging study was conducted on glaucoma patients with visual-field defects affecting both eyes (n = 10) and age-matched controls (n = 8). Following informed consent, all subjects underwent 1.5-Tesla MRI. Coronal proton density magnetic resonance images of both LGNs were obtained, and LGN height measurements were measured by consensus by three neuroradiologists masked to the diagnosis. Glaucoma and control groups were compared using the t test. Results: Both LGNs were identified and visualised by 1.5-Tesla MRI for every subject. Compared with controls, the mean LGN heights in glaucoma were decreased in right LGN atrophy may be a relevant biomarker of visual system injury and/or progression in some glaucoma patients.

Assessment of Lateral Geniculate Nucleus Atrophy with 3T MR Imaging and Correlation with Clinical Stage of Glaucoma

“…7 The present study elaborates on this initial observation in a much larger patient cohort and correlates the degree of LGN atrophy to the clinical stage of glaucoma present. This article is the first, to the knowledge of the authors, to show this association, which may have important applications for noninvasive assessment of glaucoma severity.…”

“…6,7 Gupta et al 6 reported the first clinicopathologic case of human glaucoma, demonstrating degenerative changes in the brain involving the intracranial optic nerves, LGN, and visual cortex in 2006. Three years later in vivo MR imaging evidence of LGN degeneration in human glaucoma was found, which was consistent with ex vivo primate and human neuropathologic studies.…”

Voxel-Based Morphometry and Diffusion Tensor Imaging of the Optic Pathway in Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma: A Preliminary Study

“…23 A postmortem study of human glaucoma with bilateral visual-field loss, by using histomorphometry and ex vivo MR imaging, demonstrated reduced LGN and neuron size. 5 Gupta et al, 24 after obtaining LGN height measurements in vivo by 1.5T MR imaging, reported LGN atrophy in patients with glaucoma with symmetric bilateral visual-field defects. In contrast, in the present study, more pronounced atrophy was found on the left side, and this is probably related to the more pronounced atrophy of the right nasal and left temporal retinal fibers found with OCT and may be due to the small sample, because POAG is often a bilateral condition.…”

Object and Scene Recognition Impairments in Patients with Macular Degeneration

“…Indeed, there is evidence that developmental visual disorders such as amblyopia (Mendola et al, 2005) and albinism (von dem Hagen et al, 2005) affect the structure of the human occipital cortex. A reduced size of the lateral geniculate nuclei has been reported in patients with glaucoma (Gupta et al 2009) and reduction in grey matter density was found in the retinal lesion projection zones of the visual cortex in patient with age-related macular degeneration (Boucard et al 2009). As the proportion of individuals over the age of 65 increases, institutions serving the housing needs of people with degenerative diseases are becoming more numerous.…”