Abstract
Purpose :
The study aimed to compare the whole brain gray matter volume(GMV) and white matter volume (WMV) difference between HM patients and health controls (HCs) using a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) method.
Methods :
A total of 82 patients with HM (52 males and 30 females) and 58 healthy controls (HCs) (28 males and 30 females) closely matched in age and education were enrolled in the study. All subjects underwent magnetic resonance imaging scans. The MRI data were processed using SPM8 software.The relationship between the mean GMV values of brain regions and the clinical features including refractive diopter and mean retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness in HM groups were analyzed by pearson correlation.
Results :
Compared with HCs, HM patients showed significantly decreased GMV values in the right cuneus/lingual gyrus and right thalamus. Meanwhile, the higher GMV values in the HM groups were observed in the brainstem, right parahippocampa gyrus/thalamus, left parahippocampa gyrus/thalamus, right putamen and left putamen. No significant different WMV were found between two groups. Moreover, in the HM group, the mean RNFL of left eye showed a negative correlation with the mean GMV values of the brainstem (r= -0.218; P=0.049), right parahippocampa gyrus/thalamus (r=-0.262; P=0.017), left parahippocampa gyrus/thalamus (r= -0.249; P=0.024) and left putamen (r= -0.232; P=0.036).
Conclusions :
we demonstrated that HM patients showed altered brain structure in visual pathway regions and limbic system, which might provide some useful informations to explore the neural mechanisms of impaired long distance vision in HM .
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.