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AIM: To explore the intrinsic brain activity variations in retinal vein occlusion (RVO) subjects by using the voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) technique. METHODS: Twenty-one subjects with RVO and twenty-one healthy controls (HCs) were enlisted and underwent the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) examination. The spontaneous cerebrum activity variations were inspected using the DC technology. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was implemented to distinguish the DC values of RVOs from HCs. The relationships between DC signal of definite regions of interest and the clinical characteristics in RVO group were evaluated by Pearson's correlation analysis. RESULTS: RVOs showed notably higher DC signals in right superior parietal lobule, middle frontal gyrus and left precuneus, but decreased DC signals in left middle temporal gyrus and bilateral anterior cingulated (BAC) when comparing with HCs. The mean DC value of RVOs in the BAC were negatively correlated with the anxiety and depression scale. CONCLUSION: RVO is associated aberrant intrinsic brain activity patterns in several brain areas including pain-related as well as visual-related regions, which might assist to reveal the latent neural mechanisms.

Background: Neuroimaging studies revealed that trigeminal neuralgia was related to alternations in brain anatomical function and regional function. However, the functional characteristics of network organization in the whole brain is unknown. Purpose: The aim of the present study was to analyze potential functional network brain-activity changes and their relationships with clinical features in patients with trigeminal neuralgia via the voxel-wise degree centrality method. Material and Methods: This study involved a total of 28 trigeminal neuralgia patients (12 men, 16 women) and 28 healthy controls matched in sex, age, and education. Spontaneous brain activity was evaluated by degree centrality. Correlation analysis was used to examine the correlations between behavioral performance and average degree centrality values in several brain regions. Results: Compared with healthy controls, trigeminal neuralgia patients had significantly higher degree centrality values in the right lingual gyrus, right postcentral gyrus, left paracentral lobule, and bilateral inferior cerebellum. Receiver operative characteristic curve analysis of each brain region confirmed excellent accuracy of the areas under the curve. There was a positive correlation between the mean degree centrality value of the right postcentral gyrus and VAS score (r = 0.885, P < 0.001). Conclusions: Trigeminal neuralgia causes abnormal brain network activity in multiple brain regions, which may be related to underlying disease mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The aim of the study was to investigate the underlying functional network brain activity changes in patients with late monocular blindness (MB) and the relationship with their clinical features using the voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) method.Material and Methods: A total of 32 patients with MB (25 males and 7 females), and 32 healthy controls (HCs) (25 males and 7 females) closely matched in age, sex, and education, underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. The DC method was used to assess local features of spontaneous brain activity. Correlation analysis was performed to explore the relationships between the observed mean DC signal values of the different areas and clinical features in these patients.Results: Compared with HCs, MB patients had significantly lower DC values in the bilateral cuneus/V1/V2, and significantly higher DC values in the left inferior temporal gyrus and bilateral medial frontal gyrus. However, there was no relationship between the observed mean DC values of the different brain areas and the behavioral performance.Conclusions: Late monocular blindness involves brain function network dysfunction in many regions, which might indicate impairment of the visual cortex and other vision-related brain regions in the MBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to investigate potential functional network brain-activity abnormalities in individuals with orbital fracture (OF) using the voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) technique. The present study included 20 patients with OF (12 males and 8 females) and 20 healthy controls (HC; 12 males and 8 females), who were matched for gender, age and educational attainment. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the resting state has been widely applied in several fields. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated to distinguish between patients with OF and HCs. In addition, correlation analyses were performed between behavioral performance and average DC values in various locations. The DC technique was used to assess unprompted brain activity. Right cerebellum 9 region (Cerebelum_9_R) and left cerebellar peduncle 2 area (Cerebelum_Crus2_L) DC values of patients with OF were increased compared with those in HCs. Cerebelum_9_R and Cerebelum_Crus2_L had area under the ROC curve values of 0.983 and 1.000, respectively. Patients with OF appear to have several brain regions that exhibited aberrant brain network characteristics, which raises the possibility of neuropathic causes and offers novel therapeutic options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to investigate functional networks underlying brain-activity alterations in patients with acute unilateral open globe injury (OGI) and associations with their clinical features using the voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) method. In total, 18 patients with acute OGI (16 males and 2 females), and 18 healthy subjects (16 males and 2 females), closely matched in age, sex and education, participated in the present study. Each subject underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. The DC method was used to assess local features of spontaneous brain activity. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to distinguish OGIs from healthy controls (HCs). Correlation analysis was used to examine the association between the observed mean DC values of different brain areas and behavioral performance. Compared with HCs, patients with acute unilateral OGI had significantly increased DC values in the bilateral primary visual cortex (V1/V2) and left precuneus (PCUN), and significantly decreased DC values in the right insula, left insula, right inferior parietal lobule (IPL)/supramarginal gyrus (SMG), IPL/SMG, right supplementary motor area and right postcentral gyrus. Additionally, in the acute OGI group, it was observed that the duration of OGI was negatively correlated with the DC signal value of the bilateral V1/V2 (r=-0.581; P=0.011) and left PCUN (r=-0.508; P=0.031). Acute OGI led to brain functional network dysfunction in a number of brain regions, which may indicate impairment of the visual cortex and other vision-associated brain regions in OGI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that interference from peripheral distracting information can be reduced in high perceptual load tasks has been widely demonstrated in previous research. The modulation from the perceptual load is known as perceptual load effect (PLE). Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies on perceptual load have reported the brain areas implicated in attentional control. To date, the contribution of attentional control to PLE and the relationship between the organization of functional connectivity and PLE are still poorly understood. In the present study, we used resting-state fMRI to explore the association between the voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) and PLE in an individual differences design and further investigated the potential resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) contributing to individual’s PLE. DC-PLE correlation analysis revealed that PLE was positively associated with the right middle temporal visual area (MT)—one of dorsal attention network (DAN) nodes. Furthermore, the right MT functionally connected to the conventional DAN and the RSFCs between right MT and DAN nodes were also positively associated with individual difference in PLE. The results suggest an important role of attentional control in perceptual load tasks and provide novel insights into the understanding of the neural correlates underlying PLE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]