title: Abnormal functional connectivity density in children with anisometropic amblyopia at resting-state.
abstract: Amblyopia is a developmental disorder resulting from anomalous binocular visual input in early life. Task-based neuroimaging studies have widely investigated cortical functional impairments in amblyopia, but changes in spontaneous neuronal functional activities in amblyopia remain largely unknown. In the present study, functional connectivity density (FCD) mapping, an ultrafast data-driven method based on fMRI, was applied for the first time to investigate changes in cortical functional connectivities in amblyopia during the resting-state. We quantified and compared both short- and long-range FCD in both the brains of children with anisometropic amblyopia (AAC) and normal sighted children (NSC). In contrast to the NSC, the AAC showed significantly decreased short-range FCD in the inferior temporal/fusiform gyri, parieto-occipital and rostrolateral prefrontal cortices, as well as decreased long-range FCD in the premotor cortex, dorsal inferior parietal lobule, frontal-insular and dorsal prefrontal cortices. Furthermore, most regions with reduced long-range FCD in the AAC showed decreased functional connectivity with occipital and posterior parietal cortices in the AAC. The results suggest that chronically poor visual input in amblyopia not only impairs the brain's short-range functional connections in visual pathways and in the frontal cortex, which is important for cognitive control, but also affects long-range functional connections among the visual areas, posterior parietal and frontal cortices that subserve visuomotor and visual-guided actions, visuospatial attention modulation and the integration of salient information. This study provides evidence for abnormal spontaneous brain activities in amblyopia.
authors.affiliation: School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, No. 1, Guangdong Road, Hexi District, Tianjin 300203, China.
authors.forename: Tianyue
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, No. 1, Guangdong Road, Hexi District, Tianjin 300203, China. Electronic address: guomx11@163.com.
authors.forename: Mingxia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, No. 1, Guangdong Road, Hexi District, Tianjin 300203, China.
authors.forename: Yanmin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Department of Strabismus and Amblyopia, Tianjin Aier Eye Hospital, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Qingji
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, No. 154, Anshan Road, Heping District, Tianjin 300052, China.
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: School of Medical Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, No. 1, Guangdong Road, Hexi District, Tianjin 300203, China; Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, No. 154, Anshan Road, Heping District, Tianjin 300052, China. Electronic address: chunshuiyu@vip.163.com.
authors.forename: Chunshui
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000550:Amblyopia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male
keywords: Anisometropic amblyopia; Functional connectivity; Functional connectivity density mapping; Resting-state fMRI; Visual pathway