Altered synchronous neural activities in retinal vein occlusion patients: A resting-state fMRI study

OBJECTIVE: Retinal vein occlusion (RVO) is the second most common retinal vascular disorder after diabetic retinopathy, which is the main cause of vision loss. Retinal vein occlusion might lead to macular edema, causing severe vision loss. Previous neuroimaging studies of patients with RVO demonstrated that RVO was accompanied by cerebral changes, and was related to stroke. The purpose of the study is to investigate synchronous neural activity changes in patients with RVO. METHODS: A total of 50 patients with RVO and 48 healthy subjects with matched sex, age, and education were enrolled in the study. The ReHo method was applied to investigate synchronous neural activity changes in patients with RVO. RESULTS: Compared with HC, patients with RVO showed increased ReHo values in the bilateral cerebellum_4_5. On the contrary, patients with RVO had decreased ReHo values in the bilateral middle occipital gyrus, right cerebelum_crus1, and right inferior temporal gyrus. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that patients with RVO were associated with abnormal synchronous neural activities in the cerebellum, middle occipital gyrus, and inferior temporal gyrus. These findings shed new insight into neural mechanisms of vision loss in patients with RVO.