Analysis of cortical thickness in children with concomitant strabismus / 实用放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyse the changes of cerebral cortical thickness and explore the connectivity of cortical thickness and the clinical syndrome of concomitant strabismus using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging.Methods Participants were 26 children with primary strabismus and 28 healthy children strictly matched for sex, age, education and socioeconomic level.By using Freesurfer software, the whole-brain-based analysis was perfomrmed to compare the cortical thickness between the two groups.Results Compared with the healthy control group the children with strabismus were found that the cerebral cortex became thinner, including these brain regions related with stereovision,advanced visual-attention,attention and executive control function,as well as brain areas in insula and cingulate circuit.Conclusion Concomitant strabismus in children are not only caused by pathological changes of extraocular muscles,but anatomical changes of the central nervous system, especially the brain areas involved in the advanced visual processing related with visual-motor and visual-attention, and the advanced cognitive brain regions associated with attention and executive control, as well as the anatomical changes in insula and cingulate cortex circuit, which can explain the clinical syndrome of children with concomitant strabismus.