Strabismus relates to the improper eye position, including esotropia and exotropia[1]. The prevalence of strabismus varies in different regions or nations, but what in common is that its incidence is increasing year by year[2]. Refractive differences between the eyes, hyperopia, related family history, and improper behaviors during the gestation period (drinking, smoking or drug dependence, etc.) are all clear risk factors for strabismus. Infants with congenital squint are often accompanied by the possibility of amblyopia, and the contemporary mainstream views are increasingly emphasizing the correction of amblyopia in children with strabismus. At the same time, strabismus represents one of the important reasons for the occurrence of amblyopia. The Preferred Practice Pattern (PPP) [3]also pointed out that the correction of strabismus can promote the treatment of amblyopia. The increasing number of children with strabismus and amblyopia (SA) has grown up to be done a serious public health problem. Eyes constitute an imperative tool for directly perceiving the world. Ophthalmic abnormalities and obstacles have a great influence on the growth process of children, and this impact is manifested in both physical and mental development[4]. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of strabismus and amblyopia is extremely eminent.
Traditionally, the examinations prescribed for the diagnosis of SA were limited to optical function and acuity examinations, but large numbers studies have shown that patients with SA still have changes in the structure and function of the nervous system[5–7]. However, the evaluation of this part rarely participants in clinical work. The rapid development of the field of medical imaging in recent years suggests that we may make use of it to take a more intuitive and comprehensive view of SA. Among them, fMRI has become an important examination method for us to study the pathogenesis of SA patients at the neurological level and predict possible complications because it can evaluate the brain from many aspects such as morphology, metabolism, blood perfusion, and functional changes at the same time.
fMRI is a non-invasive post-processing imaging technology for functional brain areas. Blood-oxygen level dependent (BLOD) signals are obtained according to the differences in the metabolic levels of discrete brain regions. Among them, rs-fMRI is an examination, which was carried out when the subject is awake, closed eyes, resting, and shielded from external stimuli. The result of rs-fMRI can determine the spontaneous neural activity of subject's brain[8].
Low-frequency oscillations (LFOs) is deemed to be caused by the spontaneous activity of brain neurons[9]. When a person is in resting-state and not stimulated by peripheral environment, there will be synchronous low-frequency vibrations in specific brain areas. This vibration can be revealed by the BOLD signal, and moreover, be detected, recorded and presented by rs-fMRI. On this basis, ALFF was proposed as an index of rs-fMRI. ALFF defined as the disparity between low-frequency oscillation of BOLD signal and average fluctuation amplitude of the spontaneous brain neuron activity baseline in a specific time [10], which can be helpful to some researches to reprocess the rs-fMRI result data for the spontaneous activity of functional brain areas[11, 12]. However, in practical applications, the interference of physiological noise on the consequences of ALFF increases the uncertainty of the research results, and the improved fALFF based on ALFF can solve this problem and remove the signal artifacts caused by non-specific brain neuronal activities.
Due to its unique advantages, fALFF has been widely used in the research of many diseases, including pure major depression disorder[13], migraine[14], post-stroke depression[15], Parkinson disease[16], premenstrual syndrome[17].
There is still a lot of work in the study of SA in children. Therefore, this study adopted rs-fMRI to detect aberrant autogenic activities in specific brain areas of patients through fALFF to explore the possible neural mechanisms and potential pathological changes of the disease. As the best of we known, this study is the first time that this method has been used to study SA in children.