Detection of Abnormal Viual Cortex in Children With Amblyopia by Voxel-Baed Morphometry Original Reearch Article

Purpoe To detect the abnormalitie of gray matter in children with amblyopia by voxel-baed morphometry (VBM). Deign Propective, nonrandomized clinical trial. Method Thirteen children with amblyopia and 14 normally ighted children underwent magnetic reonance (MR) examination. The two group were age-matched with a mean age of 5.8 year. In the amblyopia group, five children had trabimu amblyopia, and eight had aniometropic amblyopia. We analyzed the original 3-dimenional T1 brain image uing the VBM module within the widely ued analyi oftware package PM2 (Welcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, United Kingdom). After normalization, egmentation, and moothing of the image, comparion between amblyopic and control group wa derived for the gray matter of the entire brain uing parametric tatitic. Reult The reult of VBM analyi indicated that the amblyopic group had decreaed gray matter denity in the middle frontal gyru, parahippocampal gyru, fuiform gyru, inferior temporal gyru of the left hemiphere, and the bilateral calcarine cortice. The radii of thee region ranged from 12 to 36 voxel. Thee abnormalitie were conitent with morphologic change in brain region related to viual function. Concluion Uing MR and VBM analyi, we detected morphologic change in the viual cortex of children with amblyopia, which may indicate developmental abnormalitie of viual cortex during the critical growth period.