Dataset Information

Disrupted Intraregional Brain Activity and Functional Connectivity in Unilateral Acute Tinnitus Patients With Hearing Loss.

ABSTRACT: Purpose:The present study combined fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), and functional connectivity (FC) to explore brain functional abnormalities in acute tinnitus patients (AT) with hearing loss. Methods:We recruited twenty-eight AT patients and 31 healthy controls (HCs) and ran resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. fALFF, ReHo, and FC were conducted and compared between AT patients and HCs. After that, we calculated correlation analyses among abnormal fALFF, ReHo, FC, and clinical data in AT patients. Results:Compared with HCs, AT showed increased fALFF values in the right inferior temporal gyrus (ITG). In contrast, significantly decreased ReHo values were observed in the cerebellar vermis, the right calcarine cortex, the right precuneus, the right supramarginal gyrus (SMG), and the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Based on the differences in the fALFF and ReHo maps, the latter of which we defined as region-of-interest (ROI) for FC analysis, the right ITG exhibited increased connectivity with the right precentral gyrus. In addition, the right MFG demonstrated decreased connectivity with both the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the left precentral gyrus. Conclusion:By combining ReHo, fALFF, and FC analyses, our work indicated that AT with hearing loss had abnormal intraregional neural activity and disrupted connectivity in several brain regions which mainly involving the non-auditory area, and these regions are major components of default mode network (DMN), attention network, visual network, and executive control network. These findings will help us enhance the understanding of the neuroimaging mechanism in tinnitus populations. Moreover, these abnormalities remind us that we should focus on the early stages of this hearing disease.

SUBMITTER: Zhou GP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6761222 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Disrupted Intraregional Brain Activity and Functional Connectivity in Unilateral Acute Tinnitus Patients With Hearing Loss.

Zhou Gang-Ping GP Shi Xin-Yi XY Wei Heng-Le HL Qu Li-Jie LJ Yu Yu-Sheng YS Zhou Qing-Qing QQ Yin Xindao X Zhang Hong H Tao Yue-Jin YJ

Frontiers in neuroscience 20190919

<h4>Purpose</h4>The present study combined fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), and functional connectivity (FC) to explore brain functional abnormalities in acute tinnitus patients (AT) with hearing loss.<h4>Methods</h4>We recruited twenty-eight AT patients and 31 healthy controls (HCs) and ran resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. fALFF, ReHo, and FC were conducted and compared between AT patients and HCs. After th ...[more]

PMID: 31607851

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Project description:We investigated auditory, dorsal attention, and default mode networks in adults with tinnitus and hearing loss in a resting state functional connectivity study. Data were obtained using continuous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while the participants were at "rest" and were not performing any task. Participants belonged to one of three groups: middle-aged adults with tinnitus and mild-to-moderate high frequency hearing loss (TIN), age-matched controls with normal hearing and no tinnitus (NH), and a second control group with mild-to-moderate high frequency hearing loss without tinnitus (HL). After standard preprocessing, (a) a group independent component analysis (ICA) using 30 components and (b) a seeding-based connectivity analysis were conducted. In the group ICA, the default mode network was the only network to display visual differences between subject groups. In the seeding analysis, we found increased connectivity between the left parahippocampus and the auditory resting state network in the TIN group when compared to NH controls. Similarly, there was also an increased correlation between the right parahippocampus and the dorsal attention network when compared to HL controls. Other group differences in this attention network included decreased correlations between the seed regions and the right supramarginal gyrus in TIN patients when compared to HL controls. In the default mode network, there was a strong decrease in correlation between the seed regions and the precuneus when compared to both control groups. The findings of this study identify specific alterations in the connectivity of the default mode, dorsal attention, and auditory resting state networks due to tinnitus. The results suggest that therapies for tinnitus that mitigate the increased connectivity of limbic regions with auditory and attention resting state networks and the decreased coherence of the default mode network could be effective at reducing tinnitus-related distress.

Project description:BackgroundTinnitus can interfere with a patient's speech discrimination, but whether tinnitus itself or the accompanying sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) causes this interference is still unclear. We analyzed event-related electroencephalograms (EEGs) to observe auditory-related brain function and explore the possible effects of SNHL on auditory processing in tinnitus patients.MethodsSpeech discrimination scores (SDSs) were recorded in 21 healthy control subjects, 24 tinnitus patients, 24 SNHL patients, and 27 patients with both SNHL and tinnitus. EEGs were collected under an oddball paradigm. Then, the mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitude and latency, the clustering coefficient and average path length of the whole network in the tinnitus and SNHL groups were compared with those in the control group. Additionally, we analyzed the intergroup differences in functional connectivity among the primary auditory cortex (AC), parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG).ResultsSNHL patients with or without tinnitus had lower SDSs than the control subjects. Compared with control subjects, tinnitus patients with or without SNHL had decreased MMN amplitudes, and SNHL patients had longer MMN latencies. Tinnitus patients without SNHL had a smaller clustering coefficient and a longer whole-brain average path length than the control subjects. SNHL patients with or without tinnitus had a smaller clustering coefficient and a longer average path length than patients with tinnitus alone. The connectivity strength from the AC to the PHG and IFG was lower on the affected side in tinnitus patients than that in control subjects; the connectivity strength from the PHG to the IFG was also lower on the affected side in tinnitus patients than that in control subjects. However, the connectivity strength from the IFG to the AC was stronger in tinnitus patients than that in the control subjects. In SNHL patients with or without tinnitus, these changes were magnified.ConclusionChanges in auditory processing in tinnitus patients do not influence SDSs. Instead, SNHL might cause the activity of the AC, PHG and IFG to change, resulting in impaired speech recognition in tinnitus patients with SNHL.

Project description:Sound therapy is one of the most common first-line treatments for idiopathic tinnitus. We aimed to investigate the brain structural and functional alterations between patients with idiopathic tinnitus without hearing loss (HL) and healthy controls (HCs) and between patients before and after sound therapy (narrow band noise). Structural and resting-state functional images were acquired from 13 tinnitus patients without HL and 18 HCs before and after 6 months of narrow band sound therapy (only patients received the treatment). Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and independent component analysis (ICA) were conducted to separately investigate the brain structural and functional changes. Associations between brain changes and clinical variables were also performed. After the treatment, the % improvement of THI score was -1.30% (± 63.40%). Compared with HCs, tinnitus patients showed gray matter and white matter atrophy in the left middle temporal gyrus at baseline, and the gray matter volume was further reduced after the treatment. The patients also showed increased white matter volume in the cingulum (cingulate), right calcarine, left rolandic operculum, and left parietal and frontal lobes. Additionally, compared with HCs, tinnitus patients exhibited positive [medial visual network (mVN) and sensorimotor network (SMN), mVN and auditory network (AN)] and negative [mVN and lateral visual network (lVN)] internetwork functional connectivity (FC) at baseline and negative [left frontoparietal network (LFPN) and dorsal attention network (DAN), AN and posterior default mode network (pDMN)] internetwork FC after the narrow band sound therapy. The patients also showed negative [LFPN and right frontoparietal network (RFPN), LFPN and RFPN, anterior default mode network (aDMN) and AN, aDMN and DAN] internetwork FC after the treatment when compared with baseline. Our findings suggest that although the outcomes of idiopathic tinnitus patients without HL were not very good when the improvement of THI scores was used as an evaluation indicator, the patients experienced significant differences in auditory-related and non-auditory-related brain reorganization before and after the narrow band sound therapy, that is, sound therapy may have a significant effect on brain reorganization in patients with idiopathic tinnitus. This study may provide some new useful information for the understanding of mechanisms underlying idiopathic tinnitus.

Project description:Introduction:In neuroimaging studies, long-term unilateral hearing loss (UHL) is associated with functional changes in specific brain regions and connections; however, little is known regarding alterations in the topological organization of whole-brain functional networks and whether these alterations are related to hearing behavior in UHL patients. Methods:We acquired resting-state fMRI data from 21 patients with UHL caused by acoustic neuromas and 21 matched healthy controls. Whole-brain functional networks were constructed by measuring interregional temporal correlations of 278 brain regions. Alterations in interregional functional connectivity and topological properties (e.g., small-world, efficiency, and nodal centrality) were identified using graph-theory analysis. The subjects also completed a battery of hearing behavior measures. Results:Both UHL patients and controls exhibited efficient small-world properties in their functional networks. Compared with controls, UHL patients showed increased and decreased nodal centrality in distributed brain regions. Furthermore, the brain regions with significantly increased and decreased functional connections associated with UHL were components of the following important networks: (1) visual network; (2) higher-order functional networks, including the default-mode and attention networks; and (3) subcortical network and cerebellum. Intriguingly, the changes in intranetwork connections in UHL were significantly correlated with disease duration and hearing level. Conclusions:This study revealed connectome-level alterations involved in multiple large-scale networks related to sensory and higher-level cognitive functions in long-term UHL patients. These reorganizations of the brain in UHL patients may depend on the stage of deafness and hearing level. Together, our findings provided empirical evidence for understanding the neuroplastic mechanisms underlying hearing impairment, establishing potential biomarkers for monitoring the progression and further treatment effects for UHL patients.

Dataset Information

Disrupted Intraregional Brain Activity and Functional Connectivity in Unilateral Acute Tinnitus Patients With Hearing Loss.

Publications

Disrupted Intraregional Brain Activity and Functional Connectivity in Unilateral Acute Tinnitus Patients With Hearing Loss.

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