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Assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration

Macular degeneration (MD) embodies a collection of disorders causing a progressive loss of central vision. Cross-sectional MRI studies have revealed structural changes in the grey and white matter in the posterior visual pathway in MD but there remains a need to understand how such changes progress...

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Autores principales: Brown, Holly D. H., Gale, Richard P., Gouws, André D., Vernon, Richard J. W., Airody, Archana, Hanson, Rachel L. W., Baseler, Heidi A., Morland, Antony B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10042846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36973337
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31819-x
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author Brown, Holly D. H.
Gale, Richard P.
Gouws, André D.
Vernon, Richard J. W.
Airody, Archana
Hanson, Rachel L. W.
Baseler, Heidi A.
Morland, Antony B.
author_facet Brown, Holly D. H.
Gale, Richard P.
Gouws, André D.
Vernon, Richard J. W.
Airody, Archana
Hanson, Rachel L. W.
Baseler, Heidi A.
Morland, Antony B.
author_sort Brown, Holly D. H.
collection PubMed
description Macular degeneration (MD) embodies a collection of disorders causing a progressive loss of central vision. Cross-sectional MRI studies have revealed structural changes in the grey and white matter in the posterior visual pathway in MD but there remains a need to understand how such changes progress over time. To that end we assessed the posterior pathway, characterising the visual cortex and optic radiations over a ~ 2-year period in MD patients and controls. We performed cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of the former. Reduced cortical thickness and white matter integrity were observed in patients compared to controls, replicating previous findings. While faster, neither the rate of thinning in visual cortex nor the reduction in white matter integrity during the ~ 2-year period reached significance. We also measured cortical myelin density; cross-sectional data showed this was higher in patients than controls, likely as a result of greater thinning of non-myelinated tissue in patients. However, we also found evidence of a greater rate of loss of myelin density in the occipital pole in the patient group indicating that the posterior visual pathway is at risk in established MD. Taken together, our results revealed a broad decline in grey and white matter in the posterior visual pathway in bilateral MD; cortical thickness and fractional anisotropy show hints of an accelerated rate of loss also, with larger effects emerging in the occipital pole.
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spelling pubmed-100428462023-03-29 Assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration Brown, Holly D. H. Gale, Richard P. Gouws, André D. Vernon, Richard J. W. Airody, Archana Hanson, Rachel L. W. Baseler, Heidi A. Morland, Antony B. Sci Rep Article Macular degeneration (MD) embodies a collection of disorders causing a progressive loss of central vision. Cross-sectional MRI studies have revealed structural changes in the grey and white matter in the posterior visual pathway in MD but there remains a need to understand how such changes progress over time. To that end we assessed the posterior pathway, characterising the visual cortex and optic radiations over a ~ 2-year period in MD patients and controls. We performed cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of the former. Reduced cortical thickness and white matter integrity were observed in patients compared to controls, replicating previous findings. While faster, neither the rate of thinning in visual cortex nor the reduction in white matter integrity during the ~ 2-year period reached significance. We also measured cortical myelin density; cross-sectional data showed this was higher in patients than controls, likely as a result of greater thinning of non-myelinated tissue in patients. However, we also found evidence of a greater rate of loss of myelin density in the occipital pole in the patient group indicating that the posterior visual pathway is at risk in established MD. Taken together, our results revealed a broad decline in grey and white matter in the posterior visual pathway in bilateral MD; cortical thickness and fractional anisotropy show hints of an accelerated rate of loss also, with larger effects emerging in the occipital pole. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-03-27 /pmc/articles/PMC10042846/ /pubmed/36973337 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31819-x Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Brown, Holly D. H.
Gale, Richard P.
Gouws, André D.
Vernon, Richard J. W.
Airody, Archana
Hanson, Rachel L. W.
Baseler, Heidi A.
Morland, Antony B.
Assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration
title Assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration
title_full Assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration
title_fullStr Assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration
title_full_unstemmed Assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration
title_short Assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration
title_sort assessing the structure of the posterior visual pathway in bilateral macular degeneration
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10042846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36973337
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31819-x
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