Here we investigate brain functional connectivity in patients with visual snow syndrome (VSS). Our main objective was to understand more about the underlying pathophysiology of this neurological syndrome. Twenty‐four patients with VSS and an equal number of gender and age‐matched healthy volunteers attended MRI sessions in which whole‐brain maps of functional connectivity were acquired under two conditions: at rest while watching a blank screen and during a visual paradigm consisting of a visual‐snow like stimulus. Eight unilateral seed regions were selected a priori based on previous observations and hypotheses; four seeds were placed in key anatomical areas of the visual pathways and the remaining were derived from a pre‐existing functional analysis. The between‐group analysis showed that patients with VSS had hyper and hypoconnectivity between key visual areas and the rest of the brain, both in the resting state and during a visual stimulation, compared with controls. We found altered connectivity internally within the visual network; between the thalamus/basal ganglia and the lingual gyrus; between the visual motion network and both the default mode and attentional networks. Further, patients with VSS presented decreased connectivity during external sensory input within the salience network, and between V5 and precuneus. Our results suggest that VSS is characterised by a widespread disturbance in the functional connectivity of several brain systems. This dysfunction involves the pre‐cortical and cortical visual pathways, the visual motion network, the attentional networks and finally the salience network; further, it represents evidence of ongoing alterations both at rest and during visual stimulus processing.

中文翻译：

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视觉雪综合症中视觉、注意力和显着网络内的连接中断

在这里，我们研究了视觉雪综合征 (VSS) 患者的大脑功能连接。我们的主要目标是更多地了解这种神经系统综合征的潜在病理生理学。24 名 VSS 患者和同等数量的性别和年龄匹配的健康志愿者参加了 MRI 会议，在这些会议中，在两种条件下获得了功能连接的全脑图：在休息时观看空白屏幕和在由以下内容组成的视觉范式期间像雪一样的视觉刺激。根据先前的观察和假设，先验地选择了八个单边种子区域；四个种子被放置在视觉通路的关键解剖区域，其余的来自预先存在的功能分析。组间分析表明，与对照组相比，VSS 患者在静息状态和视觉刺激期间，关键视觉区域与大脑其他部分之间存在高连接和低连接。我们发现视觉网络内部的连接发生了变化；在丘脑/基底神经节和舌回之间；视觉运动网络与默认模式和注意力网络之间的关系。此外，VSS 患者在显着网络内以及 V5 和楔前叶之间的外部感觉输入期间表现出连接性降低。我们的研究结果表明，VSS 的特点是多个大脑系统的功能连接受到广泛干扰。这种功能障碍涉及前皮层和皮层视觉通路、视觉运动网络、注意网络，最后是显着网络；此外，它代表了在休息和视觉刺激处理过程中持续变化的证据。