Cortical thickness development of human primary visual cortex related to the age of blindness onset
Qiaojun Li1,2,#, Ming Song1,2,#, Jiayuan Xu5, Wen Qin5, Chunshui Yu5, Tianzi Jiang1,2,3,4,*
1Brainnetome Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P. R. China
2National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P. R. China
3CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P. R. China
4The Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
5Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin 300052, China
Correspondence*:
Tianzi Jiang
National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, P. R. China,
#: These authors contributed equally to this work and share the first authorship.
Demographics of blind subjects
In this study, we used the blind subjects. In summary, the causes for blindness were mainly eye-related diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa, retinal detachment, cataract, microphthalmus, and optic nerve atrophy. Although, it’s not clear the specific causes of 12 blind subjects (labeled as unknown), we checked to make sure that none of the subjects suffered from diseases of the central nervous system and were functionally normal, other than being blind. The detailed information was showed in Table S1-4.
We defined blindness using the ICD-9 and ICD-10 standards of the World Health Organization of visual acuity < 0.05 (This standard was also recommended by the International Council of Ophthalmology (2012)). If the vision loss was gradual, we specified the age when the visual acuity < 0.05 as the age of blindness onset.
Ethical issues
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tianjin Medical University and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. All the participants have been briefly explained about the purpose of the research and related issues in the study when recruiting. After the participants have been recruited, the experimental methodology and related issues would be explained carefully to all subjects, including the time requirement and other. After that, all participants have been required to sign on the “permission and information Sheets” to formally indicate their consent to participating in the study. They are allowed to withdraw from the research at any time prior to the publication of the research findings. The participants have been told what kinds of information will be used and stored, and no individual participant would be identified in the publications. All the information will not be access to others except the researchers of this study. Of course, any ideas or key findings will not be attributed to any individual participant.
Effect of age of blindness onset on surface area of the V1
We investigated the relationship between age of blindness onset and surface area using the same procedure as we used for cortical thickness. The results showed that the surface area in blind subjects did not correlate with the age of blindness onset using any of the three models in bilateral hemisphere (left hemisphere, cubic (F(3, 95) = 0.113, P = 0.953), quadratic (F(2, 96) = 0.156, P = 0.855), and linear model (F(1, 97) = 0.298, P = 0.586); right hemisphere, cubic (F(3, 95) = 0.289, P = 0.834), quadratic (F(2, 96) = 0.199, P = 0.820), and linear model (F(1, 97) = 0.041, P = 0.839)). This is very different from the effect of age of blindness onset on the cortical thickness of V1, which may be due to the different characteristics of these two morphology indices.
Table S1. Demographics of congenitally blind subjects
Group / Gender / Age / Onset Age / CauseCB001 / M / 28 / 0 / Retinal dysplasia
CB002 / F / 28 / 0 / Retinitis pigmentosa
CB003 / F / 27 / 0 / Optic nerve atrophy
CB004 / M / 24 / 0 / Eyeball dysplasia
CB005 / F / 27 / 0 / Retinitis pigmentosa
CB006 / F / 20 / 0 / Unknown
CB007 / M / 22 / 0 / Retinal dystrophia
CB008 / M / 30 / 0 / Congenital cataract, eyeball dystrophia
CB009 / M / 22 / 0 / Congenital cataract
CB010 / M / 27 / 0 / Optic nerve atrophy
CB011 / F / 20 / 0 / Microphthalmus
CB012 / M / 23 / 0 / Unknown
CB013 / M / 39 / 0 / Pupil hypoplasia, microphthalmus
CB014 / M / 36 / 0 / Hypoplasia of fundus oculi
CB015 / M / 29 / 0 / Unknown
CB016 / F / 21 / 0 / Hypoplasia of fundus oculi
CB017 / M / 31 / 0 / Congenital microphthalmus
CB018 / F / 27 / 0 / Congenital cataract
CB019 / M / 28 / 0 / Hypoplasia of fundus oculi
Table S2. Demographics of early blind subjects
EB001 / M / 31 / 1 / Retinal detached
EB002 / M / 16 / 1 / Unknown
EB003 / F / 36 / 1 / Pesticide poisoning
EB004 / M / 37 / 2 / Unknown
EB005 / F / 24 / 2 / Retinal detached
EB006 / F / 45 / 2 / Leukoma, nystagmus
EB007 / F / 35 / 3 / unknown
EB008 / M / 25 / 5 / Optic atrophy, retinal detached
EB009 / M / 30 / 5 / Optic nerve atrophy, retinal detached
EB010 / M / 31 / 6 / Congenital glaucoma
EB011 / M / 20 / 6 / Fundus injury
EB012 / M / 28 / 6 / Optic nerve atrophy
EB013 / M / 22 / 8 / Optic nerve atrophy
EB014 / M / 41 / 8 / Cataract, iris defect
EB015 / F / 24 / 8 / Retinopathy
EB016 / M / 26 / 9 / Glaucoma
EB017 / M / 31 / 9 / Retinal detached
EB018 / M / 23 / 9 / Optic nerve atrophy
EB019 / M / 26 / 9 / Congenital microphthalmus
EB020 / F / 28 / 9 / Unknown
EB021 / M / 44 / 9 / Cataract, iris defect
EB022 / M / 26 / 10 / Congenital glaucoma
EB023 / M / 25 / 10 / Congenital glaucoma
EB024 / M / 27 / 10 / Congenital microphthalmus, nystagmus
EB025 / F / 37 / 10 / Glaucoma, cataract
EB026 / F / 45 / 10 / Congenital glaucoma
EB027 / M / 27 / 10 / Unknown
EB028 / M / 26 / 10 / Glaucoma
EB029 / M / 23 / 11 / Glaucoma, cataract
EB030 / M / 22 / 11.5 / Unknown
Table S3. Demographics of adolescent blind subjects
AB001 / F / 23 / 12 / Cataract
AB002 / M / 23 / 12 / Injury
AB003 / M / 28 / 13 / Retinal detached
AB004 / F / 24 / 13 / Fundus hemorrhage
AB005 / M / 29 / 13 / Glaucoma
AB006 / M / 33 / 13 / Retinal detached
AB007 / F / 20 / 13 / Unknown
AB008 / M / 33 / 14 / Retinal detached
AB009 / M / 50 / 14 / Retinal detached
AB010 / M / 46 / 14 / Retinal detached
AB011 / M / 27 / 14 / Congenital glaucoma
AB012 / M / 27 / 14 / Retinal detached
AB013 / M / 45 / 14 / Sympathetic ophthalmic
AB014 / M / 35 / 15 / Retinal detached
AB015 / M / 31 / 15 / Retinal detached, vitreous opacities
AB016 / M / 26 / 15 / Retinal detached, congenital cataract
AB017 / F / 27 / 15 / unknown
AB018 / M / 41 / 15.5 / Glaucoma
Table S4. Demographics of late blind subjects
LB001 / M / 28 / 16 / Glaucoma, cataract
LB002 / F / 28 / 16 / Unknown
LB003 / M / 21 / 16 / Optic nerve atrophy
LB004 / F / 23 / 16 / Congenital cataract
LB005 / M / 30 / 17 / Retinal detached
LB006 / F / 25 / 17 / Congenital microphthalmus & cataract
LB007 / F / 21 / 17 / Fundus inflammation
LB008 / M / 30 / 17 / Retinal detached
LB009 / F / 31 / 17 / Optic nerve atrophy
LB010 / M / 34 / 17 / Glaucoma
LB011 / M / 24 / 18 / Congenital amblyopia
LB012 / M / 23 / 18 / Optic nerve atrophy
LB013 / F / 45 / 18 / Car accident
LB014 / M / 31 / 18 / Optic neuritis
LB015 / M / 35 / 20 / Retinal detached
LB016 / M / 43 / 20 / Retinal detached
LB017 / F / 30 / 20 / Retinitis pigmentosa, Optic nerve atrophy
LB018 / M / 46 / 20 / Injury
LB019 / F / 28 / 20 / Congenital cataract
LB020 / F / 25 / 20 / Glaucoma
LB021 / M / 25 / 21 / Optic dystrophia
LB022 / M / 26 / 22 / Congenital cataract
LB023 / M / 39 / 22 / Congenital microphthalmus
LB024 / M / 30 / 22 / Retinopathy
LB025 / M / 31 / 24 / Congenital cataract
LB026 / M / 29 / 25 / Ocular hypertension
LB027 / F / 34 / 25 / Fundus hemorrhage
LB028 / M / 38 / 27 / Optic nerve atrophy
LB029 / M / 33 / 28 / Retinitis pigmentosa
LB030 / M / 39 / 32 / Retinitis pigmentosa
LB031 / F / 41 / 32 / Retinitis pigmentosa
LB032 / M / 41 / 34 / Optic nerve atrophy