High Myopia Extends Beyond Connection to Visual Cortex

The limbic system has been implicated in ophthalmic disorders such as glaucoma, prompting the research community to explore whether other ocular conditions may show interrelation with seemingly loosely related brain structures. With high myopia, emotional disorders of anxiety and depression have already been linked, prompting the amygdala to be called into question, as it is underexplored in this area.In a new study, researchers investigated amygdala-specific whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) in 82 highly myopic patients and 59 healthy controls via resting-state functional MRI scans. It was found that, compared with controls, high myopia patients had significantly increased FC between the amygdala and key regions of the visual, default mode and executive control networks; these included the calcarine fissure, right precuneus, left middle frontal gyrus, left median cingulate and paracingulate gyri, left amygdala with left middle occipital gyrus and left middle frontal gyrus. Measures of the strength of the association achieved robust classification performance with an area under the curve of up to 0.77. These images from the study show statistically significant differences in left amygdala functional connectivity between high myopes and controls. Photo: Dong ZE, et al. Clin Ophthalmol. October 17, 2025. Click image to enlarge. Succinctly put, the authors write in a paper for Clinical Ophthalmology that “the core innovation of this study is the identification of a distinct pattern of amygdala-centric network reorganization in high myopia, providing a tangible neural substrate for the emotional and cognitive challenges associated with the condition.”Elaborating in the paper, the authors explain how the right precuneus (a region in the parietal lobe) has been previously implicated with the amygdala in interacting to shape someone’s emotional response to self-relevant stimuli. Because of this, it could be possible that functional connectivity between these two structures serves as a neural marker of effects of long-term exercise interventions on emotional regulation. The precuneus may also have a role in emotional response regulation via influencing amygdala activity. The investigators explain that “in the context of high myopia, the observed enhanced connectivity may therefore represent a neural marker of the increased demand for self-referential emotional processing and regulation, possibly reflecting the chronic stress and worry associated with vision loss.”Another structure found with increased connectivity was the left middle occipital gyrus, making up a core component of the visual processing system, which has a role in some visual processing and may also be involved with detail processing, object recognition and spatial analysis. Since high myopia can cause low-quality visual input, the brain may respond by optimizing integration of information efficiency by enhancing FC to vision-related brain regions, with left hemisphere lateralization functions—like language or fine analysis—mobilized to compensate for visual deficits.The investigators were able to “provide a potential neural framework for the heightened emotional and cognitive burden in these patients” and promote that these findings “not only deepen our understanding of the whole-body impact of high myopia but also highlight the importance of addressing the psychological well-being of patients.”Click here for the journal source. Dong ZE, Ji Y, Zhou L, et al. Amygdala connectivity alterations in high myopia: a resting-state fMRI study with SVM-based classification. Clin Ophthalmol. October 17, 2025. [Epub ahead of print].   This article was developed by the editorial staff in conjunction with experts in the field. In the process, AI may have been among the editorial tools used to meet the goals of human editors, who approved all content.