Functional magnetic resonance imaging findings in Meares-Irlen syndrome: a pilot sudy

PURPOSE: To investigate patterns of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activation during sentence reading before and after wearing color-tinted lenses.

METHODS: A total of 15 Meares-Irlen syndrome patients with a mean age of 23.4 years (range, 13 to 42 years) with no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders were scanned using a 3T MR scanner (Siemens, Tim-Trio, Germany). Each patient underwent two sessions of fMRI imaging (before and after MISViS color-tinted lens application). The fMRI paradigm included a block design of 20 seconds of rest (cross), 20 seconds of activation (sentence reading), and ten blocks (a total of 200 echo-planar image volumes) repeated for each session. Data preprocessing and analyses were performed using the SPM8 software package.

RESULTS: The reading speed of patients improved more than 20% while wearing the selected lenses. When compared to the before-lens session, the after-lens session identified significant regions of activation in the left middle and superior temporal gyri (paired t-test; maximal z score, 5.38; Montreal Neurological Institute coordinate, -60 / -39 / 0; threshold at p < 0.05; corrected for multiple comparisons using family-wise error). No region of activation at the same threshold was found in the before-lens session as compared to the after-lens session.

CONCLUSIONS: In the current study, we confirmed activation in the left middle and superior temporal gyri during sentence reading after wearing color-tinted lenses. These results could explain the effectiveness of color-tinted lenses in patients with Meares-Irlen syndrome.