ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Applied Neuroimaging
Cerebellar microstructural and functional connectivity changes in patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders and their correlation with cognitive function : A female-dominated multimodal MRI study
Provisionally accepted
- 1China-Japan Union Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, China
- 2The Second Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang, China
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Background: The cerebellum's role in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) remains inadequately explored, despite its known contributions to cognition and motor function. Methods: This multimodal neuroimaging study integrated voxel-based morphometry (VBM), resting-state functional MRI (fMRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to characterize cerebellar gray matter volume (GMV), microstructure, and functional connectivity (FC) in 29 NMOSD patients and 25 matched healthy controls. Clinical assessments included the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Results: Patients exhibited significant cerebellar alterations, including GMV reduction in bilateral lobules VI/VIII and the vermis, decreased fractional anisotropy in Crus I, and altered FC between Crus I and occipital/frontal regions. Critically, the structural and microstructural impairments correlated with higher EDSS scores (*p* < 0.05), while FC changes were associated with lower MoCA scores. Conclusion: These findings implicate the cerebellum in both motor disability and cognitive impairment in NMOSD, providing novel evidence for cerebellar pathology as a contributor to disease progression.
Keywords: Neuromyelitis, Optica, spectrum, disorder, Cerebellum, functional, connectivity, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging
Received: 15 Jun 2025; Accepted: 05 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Zheng, Li, Wang, Gu, Wang, An and Han. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yingyu Zhang, zyy2024@jlu.edu.cn
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