Brain structural changes in blindness: a systematic review and an anatomical likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis

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In recent decades, numerous structural brain imaging studies investigated purported morphometric changes in early (EB) and late onset blindness (LB). The results of these studies have not yielded very consistent results, neither with respect to the type, nor to the anatomical locations of the brain morphometric alterations. To better characterize the effects of blindness on brain morphometry, we performed a systematic review and an Anatomical-Likelihood-Estimation (ALE) coordinate-based-meta-analysis of 65 eligible studies on brain structural changes in EB and LB, including 890 EB, 466 LB and 1257 sighted controls. Results revealed atrophic changes throughout the whole extent of the retino-geniculo-striate system in both EB and LB, whereas changes in areas beyond the occipital lobe occurred in EB only. We discuss the nature of some of the contradictory findings with respect to the used brain imaging methodologies and characteristics of the blind populations such as the onset, duration and cause of blindness. Future studies should aim for much larger sample sizes, eventually by merging data from different brain imaging centers using the same imaging sequences, opt for multimodal structural brain imaging, and go beyond a purely structural approach by combining functional with structural connectivity network analyses.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer105165
TidsskriftNeuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
Vol/bind150
Antal sider24
ISSN0149-7634
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2023

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant numbers PJT-9175018 to MP), the Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Réadaptation du Montréal Métropolitain (SP), the Fonds de Recherche du Québec en Santé (MB, SP), the Lundbeck Foundation (RK) and the Harland Sanders Foundation (MP). We also acknowledge Ismaël Djerourou, Melissa Filion and Victoria Vieira for their help in extracting data.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

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