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Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: A resting-state fMRI study
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Glaucoma is one of the leading irreversible causes of blindness worldwide, and previous studies have shown that there is abnormal functional connectivity (FC) in the visual cortex of glaucoma patients. The thalamus is a relay nucleus for visual signals; however, it is not...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9583913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36277918 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2022.1015758 |
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author | Wang, Yuanyuan Chen, Linglong Cai, Fengqin Gao, Junwei Ouyang, Feng Chen, Ye Yin, Mingxue Hua, Chengpeng Zeng, Xianjun |
author_facet | Wang, Yuanyuan Chen, Linglong Cai, Fengqin Gao, Junwei Ouyang, Feng Chen, Ye Yin, Mingxue Hua, Chengpeng Zeng, Xianjun |
author_sort | Wang, Yuanyuan |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Glaucoma is one of the leading irreversible causes of blindness worldwide, and previous studies have shown that there is abnormal functional connectivity (FC) in the visual cortex of glaucoma patients. The thalamus is a relay nucleus for visual signals; however, it is not yet clear how the FC of the thalamus is altered in glaucoma. This study investigated the alterations in thalamic FC in patients with primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) by using resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI). We hypothesized that PACG patients have abnormal FC between the thalamus and visual as well as extravisual brain regions. METHODS: Clinically confirmed PACG patients and age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs) were evaluated by T1 anatomical and functional MRI on a 3 T scanner. Thirty-four PACG patients and 33 HCs were included in the rs-fMRI analysis. All PACG patients underwent complete ophthalmological examinations; included retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT), intraocular pressure (IOP), average cup-to-disc ratio (A-C/D), and vertical cup-to-disc ratio (V-C/D). After the MRI data were preprocessed, the bilateral thalamus was chosen as the seed point; and the differences in resting-state FC between groups were evaluated. The brain regions that significantly differed between PACG patients and HCs were identified, and the correlations were then evaluated between the FC coefficients of these regions and clinical variables. RESULTS: Compared with the HCs, the PACG patients showed decreased FC between the bilateral thalamus and right transverse temporal gyrus, between the bilateral thalamus and left anterior cingulate cortex, and between the left thalamus and left insula. Concurrently, increased FC was found between the bilateral thalamus and left superior frontal gyrus in PACG patients. The FC between the bilateral thalamus and left superior frontal gyrus was positively correlated with RNFLT and negatively correlated with the A-C/D and V-C/D. The FC between the left thalamus and left insula was negatively correlated with IOP. CONCLUSION: Extensive abnormal resting-state functional connections between the thalamus and visual and extravisual brain areas were found in PACG patients, and there were certain correlations with clinical variables, suggesting that abnormal thalamic FC plays an important role in the progression of PACG. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9583913 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95839132022-10-21 Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: A resting-state fMRI study Wang, Yuanyuan Chen, Linglong Cai, Fengqin Gao, Junwei Ouyang, Feng Chen, Ye Yin, Mingxue Hua, Chengpeng Zeng, Xianjun Front Neurol Neurology BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Glaucoma is one of the leading irreversible causes of blindness worldwide, and previous studies have shown that there is abnormal functional connectivity (FC) in the visual cortex of glaucoma patients. The thalamus is a relay nucleus for visual signals; however, it is not yet clear how the FC of the thalamus is altered in glaucoma. This study investigated the alterations in thalamic FC in patients with primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) by using resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI). We hypothesized that PACG patients have abnormal FC between the thalamus and visual as well as extravisual brain regions. METHODS: Clinically confirmed PACG patients and age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs) were evaluated by T1 anatomical and functional MRI on a 3 T scanner. Thirty-four PACG patients and 33 HCs were included in the rs-fMRI analysis. All PACG patients underwent complete ophthalmological examinations; included retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT), intraocular pressure (IOP), average cup-to-disc ratio (A-C/D), and vertical cup-to-disc ratio (V-C/D). After the MRI data were preprocessed, the bilateral thalamus was chosen as the seed point; and the differences in resting-state FC between groups were evaluated. The brain regions that significantly differed between PACG patients and HCs were identified, and the correlations were then evaluated between the FC coefficients of these regions and clinical variables. RESULTS: Compared with the HCs, the PACG patients showed decreased FC between the bilateral thalamus and right transverse temporal gyrus, between the bilateral thalamus and left anterior cingulate cortex, and between the left thalamus and left insula. Concurrently, increased FC was found between the bilateral thalamus and left superior frontal gyrus in PACG patients. The FC between the bilateral thalamus and left superior frontal gyrus was positively correlated with RNFLT and negatively correlated with the A-C/D and V-C/D. The FC between the left thalamus and left insula was negatively correlated with IOP. CONCLUSION: Extensive abnormal resting-state functional connections between the thalamus and visual and extravisual brain areas were found in PACG patients, and there were certain correlations with clinical variables, suggesting that abnormal thalamic FC plays an important role in the progression of PACG. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9583913/ /pubmed/36277918 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2022.1015758 Text en Copyright © 2022 Wang, Chen, Cai, Gao, Ouyang, Chen, Yin, Hua and Zeng. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Neurology Wang, Yuanyuan Chen, Linglong Cai, Fengqin Gao, Junwei Ouyang, Feng Chen, Ye Yin, Mingxue Hua, Chengpeng Zeng, Xianjun Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: A resting-state fMRI study |
title | Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: A resting-state fMRI study |
title_full | Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: A resting-state fMRI study |
title_fullStr | Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: A resting-state fMRI study |
title_full_unstemmed | Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: A resting-state fMRI study |
title_short | Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: A resting-state fMRI study |
title_sort | altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in primary angle-closure glaucoma patients: a resting-state fmri study |
topic | Neurology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9583913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36277918 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2022.1015758 |
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