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Zhong T, Zhou J, Yan T, Qiu J, Wang Y, Lu W. Pseudo-time Series Structural MRI Revealing Progressive Gray Matter Changes with Elevated Intraocular Pressure in Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma: A Preliminary Study. Acad Radiol 2024:S1076-6332(24)00155-7. [PMID: 38580519 DOI: 10.1016/j.acra.2024.03.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/19/2024] [Revised: 03/05/2024] [Accepted: 03/15/2024] [Indexed: 04/07/2024]
Abstract
RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is accompanied with gray matter (GM) changes across the brain. However, causal relationships of the GM changes have not been fully understood. Our aim was to investigate the causality of GM progressive changes in POAG using Granger causality (GC) analysis and structural MRI. MATERIALS AND METHODS Structural MRI from 20 healthy controls and 30 POAG patients with elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) were collected. We performed voxel-wise GM volume comparisons between control and POAG groups, and between control and four POAG subgroups (categorized by IOP). Then, we sequenced the structural MRI data of all POAG patients and conducted both voxel-wise and region of interest (ROI)-wise GC analysis to investigate the causality of GM volume changes in POAG brain. RESULTS Compared to healthy controls, reduced GM volumes across the brain were found, GM volume enlargements in the thalamus, caudate nucleus and cuneus were also observed in POAG brain (false discovery rate (FDR) corrected at q< 0.05). As IOP elevated, the reductions of GM volume were more severe in the cerebellum and frontal lobe. GC analysis revealed that the bilateral cerebellum, visual cortices, and the frontal regions served independently as primary hubs of the directional causal network, and projected causal effects to the parietal and temporal regions of the brain (FDR corrected at q<0.05). CONCLUSION POAG exhibits progressive GM alterations across the brain, with oculomotor regions and visual cortices as independent primary hubs. The current results may deepen our understanding of neuropathology of POAG.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tianzheng Zhong
- Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Taian, China; Department of Radiology, Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Taian, China
| | - Jian Zhou
- Department of Radiology, Taian City Central Hospital, Taian, China
| | - Tingqin Yan
- Department of Ophthalmology, Taian City Central Hospital, Taian, China
| | - Jianfeng Qiu
- Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Taian, China; Department of Radiology, Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Taian, China
| | - Yi Wang
- Department of Ophthalmology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Taian, China
| | - Weizhao Lu
- Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Taian, China.
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Nanning F, Braune K, Uttner I, Ludolph AC, Gorges M, Lulé D. Altered Gaze Control During Emotional Face Exploration in Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Neurology 2023; 101:264-269. [PMID: 36997323 PMCID: PMC10424840 DOI: 10.1212/wnl.0000000000207214] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2022] [Accepted: 02/07/2023] [Indexed: 04/01/2023] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVES Up to 50% of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) present with cognitive problems and behavioral dysfunctions including recognition of human faces presenting different emotions. We investigated whether impaired processing of emotional faces is associated with abnormal scan paths during visual exploration. METHODS Cognitively unimpaired patients with ALS (n = 45) and matched healthy controls (n = 37) underwent neuropsychological assessment and video-based eye tracking. Eye movements were recorded while participants visually explored faces expressing different emotions (neutral, disgusted, happy, fearful, and sad) and houses mimicking faces. RESULTS Compared with controls, patients with ALS fixated significantly longer to regions which are not relevant for emotional information when faces expressed fear (p = 0.007) and disgust (p = 0.006), whereas the eyes received less attention in faces expressing disgust (p = 0.041). Fixation duration in any area of interest was not significantly associated with the cognitive state or clinical symptoms of disease severity. DISCUSSION In cognitively unimpaired patients with ALS, altered gaze patterns while visually exploring faces expressing different emotions might derive from impaired top-down attentional control with possible involvement of subliminal frontotemporal areas. This may account for indistinctness in emotion recognition reported in previous studies because nonsalient features retrieve more attention compared with salient areas. Current findings may indicate distinct emotion processing dysfunction of ALS pathology, which may be different from, for example, executive dysfunction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Felix Nanning
- From the Department of Neurology (F.N., K.B., I.U., A.C.L., D.L.), University of Ulm; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) (A.C.L.), Ulm; and Institute of Medical Technology (M.G.), Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany
| | - Katharina Braune
- From the Department of Neurology (F.N., K.B., I.U., A.C.L., D.L.), University of Ulm; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) (A.C.L.), Ulm; and Institute of Medical Technology (M.G.), Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany
| | - Ingo Uttner
- From the Department of Neurology (F.N., K.B., I.U., A.C.L., D.L.), University of Ulm; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) (A.C.L.), Ulm; and Institute of Medical Technology (M.G.), Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany
| | - Albert Christian Ludolph
- From the Department of Neurology (F.N., K.B., I.U., A.C.L., D.L.), University of Ulm; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) (A.C.L.), Ulm; and Institute of Medical Technology (M.G.), Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany
| | - Martin Gorges
- From the Department of Neurology (F.N., K.B., I.U., A.C.L., D.L.), University of Ulm; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) (A.C.L.), Ulm; and Institute of Medical Technology (M.G.), Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany
| | - Dorothée Lulé
- From the Department of Neurology (F.N., K.B., I.U., A.C.L., D.L.), University of Ulm; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) (A.C.L.), Ulm; and Institute of Medical Technology (M.G.), Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany.
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Humans trade off search costs and accuracy in a combined visual search and perceptual task. Atten Percept Psychophys 2023; 85:23-40. [PMID: 36451074 PMCID: PMC9816200 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02600-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/14/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022]
Abstract
To interact with one's environment, relevant objects have to be selected as targets for saccadic eye movements. Previous studies have demonstrated that factors such as visual saliency and reward influence saccade target selection, and that humans can dynamically trade off these factors to maximize expected value during visual search. However, expected value in everyday situations not only depends on saliency and reward, but also on the required time to find objects, and the likelihood of a successful object-interaction after search. Here we studied whether search costs and the accuracy to discriminate an object feature can be traded off to maximize expected value. We designed a combined visual search and perceptual discrimination task, where participants chose whether to search for an easy- or difficult-to-discriminate target in search displays populated by distractors that shared features with either the easy or the difficult target. Participants received a monetary reward for correct discriminations and were given limited time to complete as many trials as they could. We found that participants considered their discrimination performance and the search costs when choosing targets and, by this, maximized expected value. However, the accumulated reward was constrained by noise in both the choice of which target to search for, and which elements to fixate during search. We conclude that humans take into account the prospective search time and the likelihood of successful a object-interaction, when deciding what to search for. However, search performance is constrained by noise in decisions about what to search for and how to search for it.
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Motivation by reward jointly improves speed and accuracy, whereas task-relevance and meaningful images do not. Atten Percept Psychophys 2022; 85:930-948. [PMID: 36289140 PMCID: PMC10066132 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02587-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/23/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
AbstractVisual selection is characterized by a trade-off between speed and accuracy. Speed or accuracy of the selection process can be affected by higher level factors—for example, expecting a reward, obtaining task-relevant information, or seeing an intrinsically relevant target. Recently, motivation by reward has been shown to simultaneously increase speed and accuracy, thus going beyond the speed–accuracy-trade-off. Here, we compared the motivating abilities of monetary reward, task-relevance, and image content to simultaneously increase speed and accuracy. We used a saccadic distraction task that required suppressing a distractor and selecting a target. Across different blocks successful target selection was followed either by (i) a monetary reward, (ii) obtaining task-relevant information, or (iii) seeing the face of a famous person. Each block additionally contained the same number of irrelevant trials lacking these consequences, and participants were informed about the upcoming trial type. We found that postsaccadic vision of a face affected neither speed nor accuracy, suggesting that image content does not affect visual selection via motivational mechanisms. Task relevance increased speed but decreased selection accuracy, an observation compatible with a classical speed–accuracy trade-off. Motivation by reward, however, simultaneously increased response speed and accuracy. Saccades in all conditions deviated away from the distractor, suggesting that the distractor was suppressed, and this deviation was strongest in the reward block. Drift-diffusion modelling revealed that task-relevance affected behavior by affecting decision thresholds, whereas motivation by reward additionally increased the rate of information uptake. The present findings thus show that the three consequences differ in their motivational abilities.
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McDonald MA, Stevenson CH, Kersten HM, Danesh-Meyer HV. Eye Movement Abnormalities in Glaucoma Patients: A Review. Eye Brain 2022; 14:83-114. [PMID: 36105571 PMCID: PMC9467299 DOI: 10.2147/eb.s361946] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2022] [Accepted: 07/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Glaucoma is a common condition that relies on careful clinical assessment to diagnose and determine disease progression. There is growing evidence that glaucoma is associated not only with loss of retinal ganglion cells but also with degeneration of cortical and subcortical brain structures associated with vision and eye movements. The effect of glaucoma pathophysiology on eye movements is not well understood. In this review, we examine the evidence surrounding altered eye movements in glaucoma patients compared to healthy controls, with a focus on quantitative eye tracking studies measuring saccades, fixation, and optokinetic nystagmus in a range of visual tasks. The evidence suggests that glaucoma patients have alterations in several eye movement domains. Patients exhibit longer saccade latencies, which worsen with increasing glaucoma severity. Other saccadic abnormalities include lower saccade amplitude and velocity, and difficulty inhibiting reflexive saccades. Fixation is pathologically altered in glaucoma with reduced stability. Optokinetic nystagmus measures have also been shown to be abnormal. Complex visual tasks (eg reading, driving, and navigating obstacles), integrate these eye movements and result in behavioral adaptations. The review concludes with a summary of the evidence and recommendations for future research in this emerging field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew A McDonald
- Department of Ophthalmology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Clark H Stevenson
- Department of Ophthalmology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Hannah M Kersten
- School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.,Eye Institute, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Helen V Danesh-Meyer
- Department of Ophthalmology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.,Eye Institute, Auckland, New Zealand
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Wolf C, Belopolsky AV, Lappe M. Current foveal inspection and previous peripheral preview influence subsequent eye movement decisions. iScience 2022; 25:104922. [PMID: 36060066 PMCID: PMC9429799 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104922] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2022] [Revised: 06/20/2022] [Accepted: 08/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
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Ouerfelli-Ethier J, Salemme R, Fournet R, Urquizar C, Pisella L, Khan AZ. Impaired Spatial Inhibition Processes for Interhemispheric Anti-saccades following Dorsal Posterior Parietal Lesions. Cereb Cortex Commun 2021; 2:tgab054. [PMID: 34604753 PMCID: PMC8481671 DOI: 10.1093/texcom/tgab054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2021] [Revised: 08/25/2021] [Accepted: 08/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Anti-saccades are eye movements that require inhibition to stop the automatic saccade to the visual target and to perform instead a saccade in the opposite direction. The inhibitory processes underlying anti-saccades have been primarily associated with frontal cortex areas for their role in executive control. Impaired performance in anti-saccades has also been associated with the parietal cortex, but its role in inhibitory processes remains unclear. Here, we tested the assumption that the dorsal parietal cortex contributes to spatial inhibition processes of contralateral visual target. We measured anti-saccade performance in 2 unilateral optic ataxia patients and 15 age-matched controls. Participants performed 90 degree (across and within visual fields) and 180 degree inversion anti-saccades, as well as pro-saccades. The main result was that our patients took longer to inhibit visually guided saccades when the visual target was presented in the ataxic hemifield and the task required a saccade across hemifields. This was observed through anti-saccades latencies and error rates. These deficits show the crucial role of the dorsal posterior parietal cortex in spatial inhibition of contralateral visual target representations to plan an accurate anti-saccade toward the ipsilesional side.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julie Ouerfelli-Ethier
- School of Optometry, University of Montreal, Montreal H3T 1P1, Canada
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Trajectoires Team, INSERM 1028, CNRS UMR 5292, University of Lyon I Claude-Bernard, Lyon 69500, France
| | - Romeo Salemme
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Trajectoires Team, INSERM 1028, CNRS UMR 5292, University of Lyon I Claude-Bernard, Lyon 69500, France
| | - Romain Fournet
- School of Optometry, University of Montreal, Montreal H3T 1P1, Canada
| | - Christian Urquizar
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Trajectoires Team, INSERM 1028, CNRS UMR 5292, University of Lyon I Claude-Bernard, Lyon 69500, France
| | - Laure Pisella
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Trajectoires Team, INSERM 1028, CNRS UMR 5292, University of Lyon I Claude-Bernard, Lyon 69500, France
| | - Aarlenne Z Khan
- School of Optometry, University of Montreal, Montreal H3T 1P1, Canada
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Wolf C, Lappe M. Salient objects dominate the central fixation bias when orienting toward images. J Vis 2021; 21:23. [PMID: 34431965 PMCID: PMC8399466 DOI: 10.1167/jov.21.8.23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2021] [Accepted: 07/16/2021] [Indexed: 01/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Short-latency saccades are often biased toward salient objects or toward the center of images, for example, when inspecting photographs of natural scenes. Here, we measured the contribution of salient objects and central fixation bias to visual selection over time. Participants made saccades to images containing one salient object on a structured background and were instructed to either look at (i) the image center, (ii) the salient object, or (iii) at a cued position halfway in between the two. Results revealed, first, an early involuntary bias toward the image center irrespective of strategic behavior or the location of objects in the image. Second, the salient object bias was stronger than the center bias and prevailed over the latter when they directly competed for visual selection. In a second experiment, we tested whether the center bias depends on how well the image can be segregated from the monitor background. We asked participants to explore images that either did or did not contain a salient object while we manipulated the contrast between image background and monitor background to make the image borders more or less visible. The initial orienting toward the image was not affected by the image-monitor contrast, but only by the presence of objects-with a strong bias toward the center of images containing no object. Yet, a low image-monitor contrast reduced this center bias during the subsequent image exploration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Wolf
- Institute for Psychology, University of Muenster, Münster, Germany
| | - Markus Lappe
- Institute for Psychology, University of Muenster, Münster, Germany
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Wolf C, Lappe M. Vision as oculomotor reward: cognitive contributions to the dynamic control of saccadic eye movements. Cogn Neurodyn 2021; 15:547-568. [PMID: 34367360 PMCID: PMC8286912 DOI: 10.1007/s11571-020-09661-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2020] [Revised: 12/12/2020] [Accepted: 12/28/2020] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Humans and other primates are equipped with a foveated visual system. As a consequence, we reorient our fovea to objects and targets in the visual field that are conspicuous or that we consider relevant or worth looking at. These reorientations are achieved by means of saccadic eye movements. Where we saccade to depends on various low-level factors such as a targets' luminance but also crucially on high-level factors like the expected reward or a targets' relevance for perception and subsequent behavior. Here, we review recent findings how the control of saccadic eye movements is influenced by higher-level cognitive processes. We first describe the pathways by which cognitive contributions can influence the neural oculomotor circuit. Second, we summarize what saccade parameters reveal about cognitive mechanisms, particularly saccade latencies, saccade kinematics and changes in saccade gain. Finally, we review findings on what renders a saccade target valuable, as reflected in oculomotor behavior. We emphasize that foveal vision of the target after the saccade can constitute an internal reward for the visual system and that this is reflected in oculomotor dynamics that serve to quickly and accurately provide detailed foveal vision of relevant targets in the visual field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Wolf
- Institute for Psychology, University of Muenster, Fliednerstrasse 21, 48149 Münster, Germany
| | - Markus Lappe
- Institute for Psychology, University of Muenster, Fliednerstrasse 21, 48149 Münster, Germany
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