White Matter Microstructural Abnormalities of the Visual Pathway in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Generalized Q-sampling Imaging Study

Rationale and objectives: Neurodegeneration is an early event in the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy (DR). We assessed the white matter microstructural integrity of the visual pathway in diabetes patients vs. healthy subjects, and investigated the advantages of generalized Q-sampling imaging (GQI) in the assessment of the visual pathway. Materials and methods: T1-weighted, T2-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, and simultaneous multislice- diffusion sequences were acquired from 21 DR patients, 29 diabetes patients without DR (NDR group), and 28 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Diffusion source images were reconstructed to GQI. Region of interest (ROI)-based analysis was utilized to evaluate microstructural alterations in the visual pathway. Multivariate linear regression analysis (forward stepwise method) was performed to investigate associations between clinical data and mean GQI parameters. Results: ROI-based analyses indicated that the GQI parameters generalized fractional anisotropy, quantitative anisotropy (QA), and normalized QA (NQA) were significantly lower in the NDR group than in the healthy controls, and even lower in the DR group than in the NDR group. Disease duration was significantly and negatively correlated with mean generalized fractional anisotropy and mean NQA. Conclusion: GQI could sensitively and non-invasively evaluate the visual pathway in diabetes patients. The nerve fibers of the visual pathway were damaged before the onset of retinopathy, and this damage was aggravated after retinopathy onset, as a consequence of long exposure to hyperglycemia.

Automated summary

This study assessed the white matter microstructural integrity of the visual pathway in diabetes patients and found that nerve fibers were damaged before the onset of retinopathy and further aggravated after onset. These findings suggest that early neurodegeneration is an important event in diabetic retinopathy.