Thick Visual Cortex in the Early Blind

Jiang, Jiefeng; Zhu, Wanlin; Shi, Feng; Liu, Yong; Li, Jun; Qin, Wen; Yu, Chunshui; Jiang, Tianzi

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.5451-08.2009

Cited by 187 publications

(198 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…It is well established that amblyopia is a failure of the cortical developmental process [45][46][47][48], although the exact extent of the visual cortex deficit is largely unknown. Previous studies have shown that the thickness of visual cortex in blind patients can manifest compensatory thickening [41,49]. The increased thickness of the calcarine sulcus in this study could reflect more visual stimulation in the primary visual cortex, and an increase in connectivity in this region.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 48%

Association of Optic Radiation Integrity with Cortical Thickness in Children with Anisometropic Amblyopia

Cui

et al. 2016

Neurosci. Bull.

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Previous studies have indicated regional abnormalities of both gray and white matter in amblyopia. However, alterations of cortical thickness associated with changes in white matter integrity have rarely been reported. In this study, structural magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data were obtained from 15 children with anisometropic amblyopia and 15 age-and gender-matched children with normal sight. Combining DTI and surface-based morphometry, we examined a potential linkage between disrupted white matter integrity and altered cortical thickness. The fractional anisotropy (FA) values in the optic radiations (ORs) of children with anisometropic amblyopia were lower than in controls (P \ 0.05). The cortical thickness in amblyopic children was lower than controls in the following subregions: lingual cortex, lateral occipitotemporal gyrus, cuneus, occipital lobe, inferior parietal lobe, and temporal lobe (P \ 0.05, corrected), but was higher in the calcarine gyrus (P \ 0.05, corrected). Node-by-node correlation analysis of changes in cortical thickness revealed a significant association between a lower FA value in the OR and diminished cortical thickness in the following subregions: medial lingual cortex, lateral occipitotemporal gyrus, lateral, superior, and medial occipital cortex, and lunate cortex. We also found a relationship between changes of cortical thickness and white matter OR integrity in amblyopia. These findings indicate that developmental changes occur simultaneously in the OR and visual cortex in amblyopia, and provide key information on complex damage of brain networks in anisometropic amblyopia. Our results also support the hypothesis that the pathogenesis of anisometropic amblyopia is neurodevelopmental.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 48%

Association of Optic Radiation Integrity with Cortical Thickness in Children with Anisometropic Amblyopia

Cui

et al. 2016

Neurosci. Bull.

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“…One could thus say that it is the input that determines which connection gets pruned and which is left unchanged (Sur et al, 1988;Sharma et al, 2000;von Melchner et al, 2000). If a person lacks visual input, the natural pruning process could be disturbed, leaving exuberant connections, as also indicated by recent findings of increased cortical thickness in the visual cortex of blind volunteers (Jiang et al, 2009). …”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Corticocortical Connections Mediate Primary Visual Cortex Responses to Auditory Stimulation in the Blind

Klinge

Eippert²,

Röder³

et al. 2010

J. Neurosci.

133

121

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Blind individuals have to rely on nonvisual information to a greater extent than sighted to efficiently interact with the environment, and consequently exhibit superior skills in their spared modalities. These performance advantages are often paralleled by responses in the occipital cortex, which have been suggested to be essential for nonvisual processing in the blind. However, it is currently unclear through which pathways (i.e., thalamocortical or corticocortical connections) nonvisual information reaches the occipital cortex of the blind. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study blind and matched sighted humans with an auditory discrimination paradigm and used dynamic causal modeling to investigate the effective connectivity underlying auditory activations in the primary visual cortex of blind volunteers. Model comparison revealed that a model connecting the medial geniculate nucleus (MGN), primary auditory cortex (A1), and primary visual cortex (V1) in a bidirectional manner outperformed all other models in both groups. Regarding inference on model parameters, we observed that basic auditory mechanisms (i.e., sensory input to MGN and connections from MGN to A1) did not differ significantly between the two groups. In contrast, we found clear evidence for stronger corticocortical connections from A1 to V1 in the blind, whereas results with regard to thalamocortical enhancement (from MGN to V1 and, in a control analysis, from the lateral geniculate nucleus to V1) were not consistent. These results suggest that plastic changes especially in corticocortical connectivity allow auditory information to evoke responses in the primary visual cortex of blind individuals.

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“…This is done to avoid biases across subjects with different curvature. Considering a nominal voxel size of 1.3 -1.5 mm, the voxel size is 70% -80% of the cortical thickness of V1 of 1.8 ± 0.2 mm (Jiang et al, 2009). This resolution is thus insufficient to resolve laminar features, but adequate to estimate the influence of surface vasculature.…”

Section: Surface Detectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation of the neurovascular coupling in positive and negative BOLD responses in human brain at 7T

et al. 2014

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Thick Visual Cortex in the Early Blind

Cited by 187 publications

References 44 publications

Association of Optic Radiation Integrity with Cortical Thickness in Children with Anisometropic Amblyopia

Association of Optic Radiation Integrity with Cortical Thickness in Children with Anisometropic Amblyopia

Corticocortical Connections Mediate Primary Visual Cortex Responses to Auditory Stimulation in the Blind

Investigation of the neurovascular coupling in positive and negative BOLD responses in human brain at 7T

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