Regional brain changes in patients with diabetic optic neuropathy: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Abstract

Background: To evaluate functional connection density (FCD) in patients with diabetic optic neuropathy (DON) using the resting functional connectivity (FC) method, and to determine the abnormal areas of brain activity.Methods: Patients with DON (n=22; 10 male, 12 female) and healthy controls (HCs; n=22; 10 male, 12 female) were included in the study. The basic characteristics of the groups were matched. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was conducted with participants at rest, and long-and short-range FCD (long FCD and IFCD, respectively) were measured. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was also conducted to determine whether DON and HC participants could be distinguished using fMRI indicators.Results: Compared with HCs, the long FCD values of the left lingual gyrus, right lingual gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, and medial and lateral cingulate gyri were decreased in patients with DON. Further, the IFCD values of the left superior temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, right inferior temporal gyrus, left cerebellar area 8, and right cerebellar Crus2 area were higher in patients with DON than in the HCs.Conclusions: DON is associated with abnormal spontaneous brain activity. Our findings contribute to elucidating the mechanisms underlying the neuropathology of DON, and provide direction for further clinical research.

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

“…We speculated that its abnormal activity may lead to weakening of the ability to regulate rest and work states, and even affect the cerebrum functional connection. Our findings agree with a report by Chen et al [ 34 ]. In this study, they demonstrated abnormal functional connection density in some cerebrum areas of DON patients.…”

“…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.…”

The abnormal fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation changes in patients with diabetic optic neuropathy: a steady-state fMRI study

“…Lower functional connectivity in the ACG and MCG was also observed in patients with schizophrenia [20,21]. Bürger et al [22], whole-brain and a multivariate pattern classification analysis of rs-fMRI were used to study brain activity in patients with emotional disorders. They found significantly decreased ACG activation in patients with the major depressive disorder than in those with bipolar disorder or healthy controls, which potentially indicates impaired bottom-up emotional processing and abnormal automatic emotion regulation.…”

Experience-dependent associations between distinct subtypes of childhood trauma and brain function and architecture

“…This data-driven graph theory approach quantifies global and local spontaneous neuronal activity and connectivity of voxels over the whole brain, which leads to faster calculation speeds, more accurate results, and provides complementary information for more targeted analysis (49). Generally, a higher FCD value indicates that there are more functional connections between related areas and other areas (50). It is also regarded as a functional property in hub recognition.…”