Affiliation:
1. The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang Medical College, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
2. Jiangxi Provincial People’s Hospital
Abstract
Abstract
Aim
Recent imaging studies have found significant abnormalities in the brain’s functional or structural connectivity among patients with high myopia (HM), indicating a heightened risk of cognitive impairment and other behavioral changes. However, there is a lack of research on the topological characteristics and connectivity changes of the functional networks in HM patients.In this study, we employed graph theoretical analysis to investigate the topological structure and regional connectivity of the brain function network in HM patients.
Methods
We conducted rs-fMRI scans on 82 individuals with HM and 59 healthy controls (HC), ensuring that the two groups were matched for age and education level. Through graph theoretical analysis, we studied the topological structure of whole-brain functional networks among participants, exploring the topological properties and differences between the two groups.
Results
In the range of 0.05 to 0.50 of sparsity, both groups demonstrated a small-world architecture of the brain network. Compared to the control group, HM patients showed significantly lower values of γ (P = 0.0101) and σ (P = 0.0168). Additionally, the HM group showed lower nodal centrality in the right Amygdala (P<0.001, Bonferroni-corrected). Notably, there is an increase in functional connectivity (FC) between the SN and SMN in the HM group, while the strength of FC between the basal ganglia is relatively weaker (P<0.01).
Conclusion
HM Patients exhibit reduced small-world characteristics in their brain networks, with significant drops in γ and σ values indicating weakened global interregional information transfer ability. Not only that, the topological properties of the amygdala nodes in HM patients significantly decline, indicating dysfunction within the brain network.In addition, there are abnormalities in the FC between the saliency network (SN) , Sensorimotor Network (SMN), and basal ganglia networks in HM patients , which is related to attention regulation, motor impairment, emotions, and cognitive performance. These findings may provide a new mechanism for central pathology in HM patients.
Currently, there is a lack of research on the integration of
graph theory analysis and functional magnetic resonance imaging to
investigate the changes in brain functional region connectivity in
high myopia.
In order to improve the diagnosis of high myopia and provide
timely prevention of neurological diseases caused by changes in
brain function.
To provide new perspectives for future research on the
pathological and physiological mechanisms of high myopia.
Publisher
Research Square Platform LLC