Self-consciousness In Visually Im Paired Teenage: Behavioral And Resting-state Functional MRI Evidence

How visual impairments influence self-consciousness is not only a cutting edge scientific question but also potentially important for improvement of mental health in this population. Results of previous behavioral studies on the relationship between visual impairments and self-consciousness are not consistent, which may be explained by difference in measurements of self-consciousness across studies. While there are numerous studies on the neural basis of self-consciousness in health individuals, only very few have been reported in visually impaired population. Therefore, in the current study, we used a standardized self-consciousness scale to examine behavioral manifestations of self-consciousness in blind, low sighted, and sighed individuals, and to investigate the relationship between visual impairments and brain resting-state activity using functional MRI, particularly functional connectivity between regions associated with self-consciousness.In study one, we chose the Self-Consciousness Scale: A Revised Version for Use with General Populations(SCSR), a widely used scale, and translated it into Chinese. The scale consists of three dimensions including Private-self Consciousness, Public-self Consciousness and Social Anxiety. We performed validity and reliability analyses of the Chinese version scale, showing that the three factors could count 46.16% of the variation and the α of total scores was 0.837. With this scale, we found that blind individuals had significant lower Public-Self Consciousness score than low-sight or sighted individuals, whereas no significant group difference was found in scores of Private-Self Consciousness and Social Anxiety sections.In study two, we scanned the participants with resting-state functional MRI and calculated the functional connectivity between the medial prefrontal cortex(MPFC) and the posterior cingulated cortex(PCC). We further performed correlation analyses of the functional connectivity and scores the Chinese version of SCSR. Results showed that 1) visual impairment influenced individuals’ score of SCSR, especially the scores of public-self consciousness; 2) visually impaired(blind and low-sight) individuals had lower functional connectivity between the PCC and MPFC than sighted subjects; 3) the functional connectivity between PCC and MPFC significantly correlated with Public-Self Consciousness scores.This study is the first to investigate the influence of visual impairments on self-consciousness with rest-state functional MRI. The findings of the present study preliminarily established the relationships across visual impairments, self-consciousness and functional connectivity in the brain.