The alterations of brain network degree centrality in patients with neovascular glaucoma: a resting-state fMRI study

Purpose To explore the alterations of whole brain functional network using the degree centrality (DC) analysis in neovascular glaucoma (NVG) and the correlation between DC values and NVG clinical indices. Materials and methods Twenty NVG patients and twenty normal controls (NC), closely matched in age, sex, and education, were recruited for this study. All subjects underwent comprehensive ophthalmologic examinations and a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scan. The differences in DC values of brain network between NVG and NC groups were analyzed, and correlation analysis was performed to explore the relationships between DC values and clinical ophthalmological indices in NVG group. Results Compared with NC group, significantly decreased DC values were found in the left superior occipital gyrus and left postcentral gyrus, while significantly increased DC values in the right anterior cingulate gyrus and left medial frontal gyrus in NVG group. (All P < 0.05, FDR corrected). In the NVG group, the DC value in left superior occipital gyrus showed significantly positive correlations with retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness ( R = 0.484, P = 0.031) and mean deviation of visual field (MDVF) ( R = 0.678, P = 0.001). Meanwhile, the DC value in the left medial frontal gyrus demonstrated significantly negative correlations with RNFL ( R = − 0.544, P = 0.013) and MDVF ( R = − 0.481, P = 0.032). Conclusions NVG exhibited decreased network degree centrality in visual and sensorimotor brain regions and increased degree centrality in cognitive-emotional processing brain region. Additionally, the DC alterations might be complementary imaging biomarkers to assess disease severity.