Abstract：Objective: To explore attention deficiency and resting-state functional connectivity strength(FCS) changes in the dorsal attention network(DAN) of neuromyelitis optica(NMO) patients. Methods: A total of 43 NMO patients and 44 age-, sex- and education-matched healthy controls were enrolled in our study. Attentional function was assessed by the symbol-digit modalities test(SDMT) and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) data were also acquired for each subject. Seed-based and conjunction analyses were used to extract the DAN. FCS maps of DAN were obtained for each subject and were then compared between the two groups using a two-sample t test. Multiple comparisons were corrected by a voxel-wise false discovery rate(FDR) method with a threshold of P<0.05. Results: NMO patients performed significantly worse on SDMT relative to healthy controls, suggesting the attention disturbance in NMO. FCS changes were also found in DAN of NMO, including decrease in bilateral postcentral gyrus, and an increase in the left superior parietal lobule and the left superior frontal gyrus. Conclusion: Altered FCS was found in DAN of NMO patients, which may be part of the neural foundation of attention deficiency in NMO.
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