TY - JOUR
T1 - White matter plasticity following cataract surgery in congenitally blind patients
AU - Pedersini, Caterina A.
AU - Miller, Nathaniel P.
AU - Gandhi, Tapan K.
AU - Gilad-Gutnick, Sharon
AU - Mahajan, Vidur
AU - Sinha, Pawan
AU - Rokers, Bas
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Brian Allen for assistance with dMRI data processing and analysis. Funding and Support: Core Technology Platforms resources at New York University Abu Dhabi. ASPIRE, the technology program management pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, via the ASPIRE Precision Medicine Research Institute Abu Dhabi (VRI-20-10). High Performance Computing resources at New York University Abu Dhabi. National Institute of Mental Health of the NIH Award Number U01MH109589. Project Prakash is supported by NIH NEI Grant No. R01EY020517, and grants from the Nick Simons Foundation, the Sikand Foundation, and the Halis Foundation. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.
Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Brian Allen for assistance with dMRI data processing and analysis. Funding and Support: Core Technology Platforms resources at New York University Abu Dhabi. ASPIRE, the technology program management pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, via the ASPIRE Precision Medicine Research Institute Abu Dhabi (VRI-20-10). High Performance Computing resources at New York University Abu Dhabi. National Institute of Mental Health of the NIH Award Number U01MH109589. Project Prakash is supported by NIH NEI Grant No. R01EY020517, and grants from the Nick Simons Foundation, the Sikand Foundation, and the Halis Foundation. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
PY - 2023/5/9
Y1 - 2023/5/9
N2 - The visual system develops abnormally when visual input is absent or degraded during a critical period early in life. Restoration of the visual input later in life is generally thought to have limited benefit because the visual system will lack sufficient plasticity to adapt to and utilize the information from the eyes. Recent evidence, however, shows that congenitally blind adolescents can recover both low-level and higher-level visual function following surgery. In this study, we assessed behavioral performance in both a visual acuity and a face perception task alongside longitudinal structural white matter changes in terms of fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). We studied congenitally blind patients with dense bilateral cataracts, who received cataract surgery at different stages of adolescence. Our goal was to differentiate between age- and surgery-related changes in both behavioral performance and structural measures to identify neural correlates which might contribute to recovery of visual function. We observed surgery-related long-term increases of structural integrity of late-visual pathways connecting the occipital regions with ipsilateral fronto-parieto-temporal regions or homotopic contralateral areas. Comparison to a group of age-matched healthy participants indicated that these improvements went beyond the expected changes in FA and MD based on maturation alone. Finally, we found that the extent of behavioral improvement in face perception was mediated by changes in structural integrity in late visual pathways. Our results suggest that sufficient plasticity remains in adolescence to partially overcome abnormal visual development and help localize the sites of neural change underlying sight recovery.
AB - The visual system develops abnormally when visual input is absent or degraded during a critical period early in life. Restoration of the visual input later in life is generally thought to have limited benefit because the visual system will lack sufficient plasticity to adapt to and utilize the information from the eyes. Recent evidence, however, shows that congenitally blind adolescents can recover both low-level and higher-level visual function following surgery. In this study, we assessed behavioral performance in both a visual acuity and a face perception task alongside longitudinal structural white matter changes in terms of fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). We studied congenitally blind patients with dense bilateral cataracts, who received cataract surgery at different stages of adolescence. Our goal was to differentiate between age- and surgery-related changes in both behavioral performance and structural measures to identify neural correlates which might contribute to recovery of visual function. We observed surgery-related long-term increases of structural integrity of late-visual pathways connecting the occipital regions with ipsilateral fronto-parieto-temporal regions or homotopic contralateral areas. Comparison to a group of age-matched healthy participants indicated that these improvements went beyond the expected changes in FA and MD based on maturation alone. Finally, we found that the extent of behavioral improvement in face perception was mediated by changes in structural integrity in late visual pathways. Our results suggest that sufficient plasticity remains in adolescence to partially overcome abnormal visual development and help localize the sites of neural change underlying sight recovery.
KW - blindness
KW - dMRI
KW - sight restoration
KW - visual pathways
KW - white matter plasticity
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U2 - 10.1073/PNAS.2207025120
DO - 10.1073/PNAS.2207025120
M3 - Article
C2 - 37126677
AN - SCOPUS:85158016428
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 120
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 19
M1 - e2207025120
ER -