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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Michael FirbankORCiD, Daniel Collerton, Dr Greg Elder, Dr Jehill Parikh, Kirsty OlsenORCiD, Julia Schumacher, Professor John-Paul TaylorORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Background and Objectives: In Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS), visual hallucinations (VH)are experienced by people with sight loss due to eye disease or lesional damage to early visualpathways. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate structural brain changesusing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in CBS.Methods: Sixteen CBS patients, 17 with eye disease but no VH, and 19 normally sighted peopletook part. Participants were imaged on a 3T scanner, with 1mm resolution T1 weightedstructural imaging, and diffusion tensor imaging with 64 diffusion directions.Results: The three groups were well matched for age, sex and cognitive scores (MMSE). Thetwo eye disease groups were matched on visual acuity. Compared to the sighted controls, wefound reduced grey matter in the occipital cortex in both eye disease groups. We also foundreductions of fractional anisotropy and increased diffusivity in widespread areas, includingoccipital tracts, the corpus callosum, and the anterior thalamic radiation. We did not find anysignificant differences between the eye disease participants with VH versus without VH, butdid observe a negative association between hippocampal volume and VH severity in the CBSgroup.Discussion: Our findings suggest that although there are cortical and subcortical effectsassociated with sight loss structural changes do not explain the occurrence of VHs. CBS mayrelate instead to connectivity or excitability changes in brain networks linked to vision.
Author(s): Firbank MJ, daSilva Morgan K, Collerton D, Elder GJ, Parikh J, Olsen K, Schumacher J, ffytche D, Taylor JP
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: NeuroImage: Clinical
Year: 2022
Volume: 35
Online publication date: 11/05/2022
Acceptance date: 06/05/2022
Date deposited: 06/05/2022
ISSN (electronic): 2213-1582
Publisher: Elsevier BV
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103041
DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103041
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