Research progress on the application of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in glaucoma

Abstract

Glaucoma is the world's No.1 irreversible disease causing blindness. It is one of the neuroophthalmic diseases characterized by an optic nerve injury and visual field defect. Numerous studies have shown that the damage caused by glaucoma is not only limited to the apoptosis of local visual ganglion cells in the eye, but also involves the entire visual pathway of the cerebral visual cortex, which is a neurodegenerative disease of the entire brain. Recently, with the rapid development of functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI), anatomy and function of nervous system are combined, so that the damage of local brain tissue corresponds to the lack of brain function, which helped in achieving the observation of anatomical structure and functional changes of the central nervous system under non-invasive conditions, thus providing the effective evidence for the pathological mechanism in glaucoma's research. Being a popular research technology in neuroimaging, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rs-fMRI)provides important evidences for exploring the anatomical structure, metabolism and functional changes of vision-related brain regions in patients with glaucoma. This review mainly discusses the principle of rs-fMRI and some common analysis methods such as amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation(ALFF), regional homogeneity(ReHo), degree centrality(DC)and functional connectivity(FC)in the application and research progress in glaucoma.

Keywords

• glaucoma
• resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging
• amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation
• regional homogeneity
• degree centrality
• functional connectivity