Alterations of the Brain Microstructure and Corresponding Functional Connectivity in Early-Blind Adolescents.

Alterations of the Brain Microstructure and Corresponding Functional Connectivity in Early-Blind Adolescents.
Neural Plast. 2019;2019:2747460
Authors: Zhou Z, Xu J, Shi L, Liu X, Hou F, Zhou J, Luo J, Hu Q, Li H
Abstract
Although evidence from studies on blind adults indicates that visual deprivation early in life leads to structural and functional disruption and reorganization of the brain, whether young blind people show similar patterns remains unknown. Therefore, this study is aimed at exploring the structural and functional alterations of the brain of early-blind adolescents (EBAs) compared to normal-sighted controls (NSCs) and investigating the effects of residual light perception on brain microstructure and function in EBAs. We obtained magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 23 EBAs (8 with residual light perception (LPs), 15 without light perception (NLPs)) and 21 NSCs (age range 11-19 years old). Whole-brain voxel-based analyses of diffusion tensor imaging metrics and region-of-interest analyses of resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) were performed to compare patterns of brain microstructure and the corresponding RSFC between the groups. The results showed that structural disruptions of LPs and NLPs were mainly located in the occipital visual pathway. Compared with NLPs, LPs showed increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the superior frontal gyrus and reduced diffusivity in the caudate nucleus. Moreover, the cor...

Source: Neural Plasticity - April 19, 2019 Category: Neurology Authors: Zhou Z, Xu J, Shi L, Liu X, Hou F, Zhou J, Luo J, Hu Q, Li H Tags: Neural Plast Source Type: research