Gray matter alterations in visual cortex of patients with loss of central vision due to hereditary retinal dystrophies

Plank, Tina; Frolo, Jozef; Brandl-Rühle, Sabine; Renner, Agnes B.; Hufendiek, Karsten; Helbig, Horst; Greenlee, Mark W.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.02.055

Cited by 50 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Consistent with the current findings, the previous MRI structural studies have also found a cortical reduction in the anterior half of the occipital cortex in glaucoma patients (Boucard et al, 2009;Chen et al, 2013a;Yu et al, 2013). By comparison, the main morphological changes of visual cortex in ocular diseases associated with central visual defects, such as macular degeneration (Boucard et al, 2009) and hereditary retinal dystrophies (Plank et al, 2011), were located around the posterior part of the calcarine fissure. Thus, it could be concluded that ocular diseases involved different visual field defects would result in corresponding impairments in the anterior or posterior sections of visual cortex.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Morphologic changes in the anterior and posterior subregions of V1 and V2 and the V5/MT+ in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma

Yin

Dai

et al. 2014

Brain Research

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Morphologic changes in the anterior and posterior subregions of V1 and V2 and the V5/MT+ in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma

Yin

Dai

et al. 2014

Brain Research

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“…It seems the response of the cortex to retinal damage is influenced by the spatial distribution of this loss, the age at which it occurs, or both. Earlier studies that reported gray matter loss in blinding diseases are difficult to relate to our study as a voxel based morphometry approach was used which combines changes in thickness and surface area [73]. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of Individual Variation in Visual Pathway Structure and Function in the Sighted and Blind

et al. 2016

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Many structural and functional brain alterations accompany blindness, with substantial individual variation in these effects. In normally sighted people, there is correlated individual variation in some visual pathway structures. Here we examined if the changes in brain anatomy produced by blindness alter the patterns of anatomical variation found in the sighted. We derived eight measures of central visual pathway anatomy from a structural image of the brain from 59 sighted and 53 blind people. These measures showed highly significant differences in mean size between the sighted and blind cohorts. When we examined the measurements across individuals within each group we found three clusters of correlated variation, with V1 surface area and pericalcarine volume linked, and independent of the thickness of V1 cortex. These two clusters were in turn relatively independent of the volumes of the optic chiasm and lateral geniculate nucleus. This same pattern of variation in visual pathway anatomy was found in the sighted and the blind. Anatomical changes within these clusters were graded by the timing of onset of blindness, with those subjects with a post-natal onset of blindness having alterations in brain anatomy that were intermediate to those seen in the sighted and congenitally blind. Many of the blind and sighted subjects also contributed functional MRI measures of cross-modal responses within visual cortex, and a diffusion tensor imaging measure of fractional anisotropy within the optic radiations and the splenium of the corpus callosum. We again found group differences between the blind and sighted in these measures. The previously identified clusters of anatomical variation were also found to be differentially related to these additional measures: across subjects, V1 cortical thickness was related to cross-modal activation, and the volume of the optic chiasm and lateral geniculate was related to fractional anisotropy in the visual pathway. Our findings show that several of the structural and functional effects of blindness may be reduced to a smaller set of dimensions. It also seems that the changes in the brain that accompany blindness are on a continuum with normal variation found in the sighted.

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“…These studies have demonstrated that disruption of visual input can lead to atrophic changes including the visual pathway and early visual cortical areas, whereas the spread of atrophy to higher cortical areas has not been demonstrated consistently (Boucard et al 2009; Chan et al 2004; Hernowo et al 2011; 2013; Kitajima et al 1997; Mendola et al 2005; Parravano et al 1993; Plank et al 2011; von dem Hagen et al 2005). These extrastriate areas could provide the main substrate for visual imagery in SH.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual imagery and functional connectivity in blindness: a single-case study

et al. 2015

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We present a case report on visual brain plasticity after total blindness acquired in adulthood. SH lost her sight when she was 27. Despite having been totally blind for 43 years, she reported to strongly rely on her vivid visual imagery. Three-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of SH and age-matched controls was performed. The MRI sequence included anatomical MRI, resting-state functional MRI, and task-related functional MRI where SH was instructed to imagine colours, faces, and motion. Compared to controls, voxel-based analysis revealed white matter loss along SH's visual pathway as well as grey matter atrophy in the calcarine sulci. Yet we demonstrated activation in visual areas, including V1, using functional MRI. Of the four identified visual resting-state networks, none showed alterations in spatial extent; hence, SH's preserved visual imagery seems to be mediated by intrinsic brain networks of normal extent. Time courses of two of these networks showed increased correlation with that of the inferior posterior default mode network, which may reflect adaptive changes supporting SH's strong internal visual representations. Overall, our findings demonstrate that conscious visual experience is possible even after years of absence of extrinsic input.

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Gray matter alterations in visual cortex of patients with loss of central vision due to hereditary retinal dystrophies

Cited by 50 publications

References 70 publications

Morphologic changes in the anterior and posterior subregions of V1 and V2 and the V5/MT+ in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma

Morphologic changes in the anterior and posterior subregions of V1 and V2 and the V5/MT+ in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma

Patterns of Individual Variation in Visual Pathway Structure and Function in the Sighted and Blind

Visual imagery and functional connectivity in blindness: a single-case study

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