Effect of strabismus and amblyopia on small-world topology: A longitudinal rs-fMRI study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Recent studies have shown that strabismus and amblyopia (SA) not only reduce vision, but they also affect the appearance of patients and are associated with mental illness. In this study, we evaluated the resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) results of patients with SA. METHODS: The study included 16 SA patients and 16 healthy controls (HCs). MRI scans were performed, and graph theory methods were used to analyze the data to evaluate changes in brain regions and small-world topology. RESULTS: Both SA patients and HCs showed standardized clustering coefficients (γ) and compact world (σ) values greater than 1, indicating that both groups have typical small-world topology. However, compared with HCs, SA patients’ γ and σ values were increased significantly. CONCLUSION: SA patients exhibited typical small-world topology, and this may relate to their psychiatric symptoms.