Altered Spontaneous Brain Activity Patterns In Strabismus With Amblyopia Patients Using Amplitude Of Low-frequency Fluctuation

Objective: This current study was compared with the healthy controls through application of the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation(ALFF)technique to investigate the intrinsic brain activity changes in SA subjects.It is also associated with clinical features.Methods: A total of 16 patients with SA(6 males and 10 females)and 16 healthy controls(HCs;6 males and 10 females)similarly matched in age,gender and education status were recruited and examined with the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rs-fMRI).The spontaneous brain activity changes were investigated using the ALFF technique.The receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was performed to classify the mean ALFF signal values of the SA patients from HCs.The correlations between the ALFF values of distinct brain regions and theexotropia deviation in SA patients were evaluated in terms of the Pearson’s correlation analysis.Results: Compared with HCs,SA patients had significantly decreased ALFF in the left cerebellum posterior lobe,left middle frontal gyrus and bilateral thalamus.In contrast,SA patients showed increased ALFF values in the right superior frontal gyrus,right precuneus,left cuneus and bilateral precentral gyrus.ALFF singal value was statistically significant(P<0.05).The individual AUC of ALFF values in different regions were as follows: right superior frontal gyrus(0.871,P<0.001),right precuneus(0.949,P<0.001),left cuneus(0.898,P<0.001),bilateral precentral gyrus(0.957,P<0.001),left cerebellum posterior lobe(0.914,P<0.001),left thalamus(0.938,P<0.001),right thalamus(0.938,P<0.001),and left middle frontal gyrus(0.973,P<0.001).The average ALFF value of the left posterior cerebellum in SA group was negatively correlated with the squint(r=-0.765,P<0.01).Conclusions: Diverse brain regions including vision-related and motion-related areas exhibited aberrant intrinsic brain activity patterns,which imply the neuropathologic mechanisms of oculomotor disorder and vision deficit in the SA patients.