School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas.
Department of Surgical Sciences, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2019 May;40(7):2241-2251. doi: 10.1002/hbm.24521. Epub 2019 Jan 15.
In the present study, we use resting state fMRI to investigate whether nucleus accumbens (NAc) and extended frontostriatal networks are involved in the pathology of auditory phantom perception, i.e., tinnitus, through a study of functional connectivity. We hypothesize that resting state functional connectivity involving NAc will be increased relative to what is observed in healthy subjects and that this connectivity will correlate with clinical measures of tinnitus such as percept loudness, duration of symptoms, etc. We show that a large sample of patients with chronic tinnitus (n = 90) features extensive functional connectivity involving NAc that is largely absent in healthy subjects (n = 94). We further show that connectivity involving NAc correlates significantly with tinnitus percept loudness and the duration of tinnitus symptoms, even after controlling for the effects of age and hearing loss. The loudness correlation, which involves NAc and parahippocampal cortex, is consistent with existing literature identifying the parahippocampus as a tinnitus generator. Our results further suggest that frontostriatal connectivity may predict the transition from acute to chronic tinnitus, analogous to what is seen in the pain literature. We discuss these ideas and suggest fruitful avenues for future research.
在本研究中，我们使用静息态 fMRI 来通过功能连接研究，探讨伏隔核（NAc）和扩展额眶皮质纹状体网络是否参与了听觉幻听感知（即耳鸣）的病理过程。我们假设，与健康受试者相比，涉及 NAc 的静息态功能连接会增加，并且这种连接将与耳鸣的临床测量指标（如感知响度、症状持续时间等）相关。我们表明，大量慢性耳鸣患者（n=90）具有涉及 NAc 的广泛功能连接，而健康受试者（n=94）则基本不存在这种连接。我们进一步表明，即使在控制年龄和听力损失的影响后，涉及 NAc 的连接也与耳鸣感知响度和耳鸣症状持续时间显著相关。涉及 NAc 和海马旁回的响度相关性与现有文献一致，该文献将海马旁回确定为耳鸣发生器。我们的结果还表明，额眶皮质纹状体的连接可能预测从急性到慢性耳鸣的转变，类似于在疼痛文献中所见。我们讨论了这些想法，并提出了未来研究的有价值的途径。
