Abnormal regional spontaneous neural activity in visual pathway in retinal detachment patients: a resting-state functional MRI study

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate changes of brain neural homogeneity in retinal detachment (RD) patients using the regional homogeneity (ReHo) method to understand their relationships with clinical features.

Materials and methods: A total of 30 patients with RD (16 men and 14 women), and 30 healthy controls (HCs) (16 men and 14 women) closely matched in age and sex were recruited. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were performed for all subjects. The ReHo method was used to investigate the brain regional neural homogeneity. Patients with RD were distinguished from HCs by receiver operating characteristic curve. The relationships between the mean ReHo signal values in many brain regions and clinical features in RD patients were calculated by Pearson correlation analysis.

Results: Compared with HCs, RD patients had significantly decreased ReHo values in the right occipital lobe, right superior temporal gyrus, bilateral cuneus and left middle frontal gyrus. Moreover, we found that the mean ReHo signal of the bilateral cuneus showed positive relationships with the duration of the RD (r=0.392, P=0.032).

Conclusion: The RD patients showed brain neural homogeneity dysfunction in the visual pathway, which may underline the pathological mechanism of RD patients with acute vision loss. Besides, the ReHo values can reflect the progress of the RD disease.

Keywords: functional magnetic resonance imaging; neural regional homogeneity; resting state; retinal detachment.

Figure 1

Spontaneous brain activity in the RDs and HCs. Significant activity differences were observed in the right occipital lobe, right superior temporal gyrus, bilateral cuneus and left middle frontal gyrus for multiple comparisons using Gaussian random field theory (z>2.3, P<0.01, cluster >40 voxels, AlphaSim corrected). (A) and (B) The mean values of altered ReHo values between the RD and HC groups (C). Abbreviations: ReHo, regional homogeneity; RD, retinal detachment; HC, healthy controls; L, left; R, right.

Figure 2

Correlations between the mean ReHo signal values and behavioral performance. Note: In the RDs group, the mean ReHo signal of the bilateral cuneus showed positive relationships with the duration of the RD (r=0.392, P=0.032). Abbreviations: ReHo, regional homogeneity; RD, retinal detachment.

Figure 3

ROC curve analysis of the mean ReHo values for altered brain regions. Notes: The areas under the ROC curve were 0.807 (P<0.001; 95% CI: 0.698–0.915) for the right occipital lobe; 0.764 (P<0.001; 95% CI: 0.640–0.889) for the right superior temporal gyrus; and 0.744 (P=0.001; 95% CI: 0.620–0.869) for the bilateral cuneus; 0.750 (P=0.001; 95% CI: 0.627–0.873) for the left middle frontal gyrus (RDs < HCs). Abbreviations: HCs, healthy controls; RD, retinal detachment; ReHo, regional homogeneity; ROC, receiver operating characteristic.