SUMMARY: Cerebellum regulates motor control and physical coordination. It is known that when eye and hand need to be worked in combination, cerebellum is active and it provides coordination between eye and hand. Cerebellar cortex atrophy appears with dismetry and saccadic eye movement. If there is no stimulant related to vision, how cerebellum is adopted under this circumstance? In order to explore this, 27 male and 16 female volunteers with bilateral congenital blindness were compared with 35 male and 33 female healthy volunteers in this study. MR images of cross-sectional sequential cerebellum of volunteers with 1.5 mm thickness were realized in coronal plane. The surface area of apparent cerebellum seen in cross-sections was calculated by using Onis (Ver. 2.1) programme. Surface area data obtained by systematic randomized sampling were converted to volume by Cavalieri method. Cerebellar volume of bilateral congenital blind male was 128.15 ± 11.11 cm 3 , and cerebellar volume of bilateral congenital blind female was 118.60 ±10.73 cm
3. Cerebellar volume for healthy men and women were 132.89 ± 12.51 cm 3 and 125.97 ± 10.78 cm 3 , respectively. It was revealed that cerebellar volume for bilateral congenital blind men was smaller than that of healthy men, but this difference was not significant. On the other hand cerebellar volume of bilateral congenital blind women was significantly smaller than that of healthy women (p<0.05). No asymmetry was detected between right and left side of cerebellum in both bilateral congenital blind and healthy subjects.
240alcohol use and cerebellar volume of healthy individuals have all been studied previously (Hutchinson et al.;Keller et al., 2003;Laycock et al., 2008;Hill et al., 2007;Göçmen-Mas et al., 2009). In blind individuals, visual cortex and plasticity have also been studied profusely (Burton, 2003;Lambert et al., 2004). However, cerebellar volume has not been a subject of research in people with bilateralcongenital blindness. How does the cerebellum adapt itself to the absence of visual stimulants? Our study will shed light on this issue.
MATERIAL AND METHODIncluded in the study were 27 males (average age 39±12) and 16 females (average age 32±10) with bilateral congenital blindness. In order to make a comparison with healthy individuals, 35 males (average age 43±14) and 33 females (average age 37±9) were also included in the study. Following an approval from the ethics committee of Abant Izzet Baysal University Faculty of Medicine, consecutive images were obtained in coronal direction with 1.5 mm section thickness from the volunteers by using the 1.5 Tesla Magneton Symphony model MR device made in Germany, at the Department of Radiology in our hospital (Levitt et al., 1999). Images were saved in Dicom format. Images were then viewed by using the Onis (Ver. 2.1) software. All the sections showing cerebellum from anterior towards posterior were observed. Following a windowing procedure that would distinguish cerebellum from peripheral tissues, the same software was used t...