Altered Intrinsic Regional Spontaneous Brain Activity in Patients With Severe Obesity and Meibomian Gland Dysfunction: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Yi Liu; Sheng-Xing Tan; Yu-Kang Wu; Yan-Kun Shen; Li-Juan Zhang; Min Kang; Ping Ying; Yi-Cong Pan; Hui-Ye Shu; Yi Shao

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2022.879513

Altered Intrinsic Regional Spontaneous Brain Activity in Patients With Severe Obesity and Meibomian Gland Dysfunction: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 May 19:16:879513. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.879513. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yi Liu¹, Sheng-Xing Tan¹, Yu-Kang Wu¹, Yan-Kun Shen¹, Li-Juan Zhang², Min Kang², Ping Ying², Yi-Cong Pan², Hui-Ye Shu², Yi Shao²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
² Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Jiangxi Branch of National Clinical Research Center for Ocular Disease, Nanchang, China.

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate potential regional homogeneity (ReHo) cerebrum function lesions in people with severe obesity and meibomian gland dysfunction (SM) and probe the connection between aberrant cerebrum activity and clinical manifestations.

Patients and methods: An aggregation of 12 patients with SM, and 12 healthy controls (HCs) closely matched in age and gender were enrolled. We applied corneal confocal microscopy and fundus angiography to compare imaging distinctions between the two groups. SMs were required to carefully fill out the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) forms, and a correlation analysis was performed. ReHo was also utilized to appraise partial differences in spontaneous cerebrum function. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were created to partition ReHo values between patients with SM and the HCs.

Results: ReHo values for the left cerebellum (LC), right fusiform gyrus (RFG), left inferior temporal gyrus (LITG), left rectus gyrus (LRG), right thalamus (RT), right caudate (RC), left insula (LI), and left thalamus (LT) of subjects with SM were notably higher than those of the HCs (P < 0.05). ReHo values of the right middle frontal gyrus (RMFG) in subjects with SM were decreased notably compared to the HCs (P < 0.05). ReHo values for the RMFG showed a negative correlation with the anxiety scores (ASs; r = -0.961, P < 0.001) and ReHo values for the RFG showed a positive correlation with the depression scores (DSs; r = 0.676, P = 0.016). The areas under the ROC curve were 1.000 (P < 0.001) for the RMFG, LC, LITG, LRG, RC, LI, and LT and 0.993 (P < 0.001) for the RFG and RT. The results from the ROC curve analysis indicated that changes in the ReHo values of some brain regions may help diagnose SM.

Conclusion: Our research emphasized that patients with SM had lesions in synchronized neural activity in many encephalic areas. Our discoveries may provide beneficial information for exploring the neuromechanics of SM.

Keywords: Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale; functional magnetic resonance imaging; meibomian gland dysfunction; regional homogeneity; resting state; severe obesity.