Xu Xiao-Min, Jiao Yun, Tang Tian-Yu, Lu Chun-Qiang, Zhang Jian, Salvi Richard, Teng Gao-Jun
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Functional Imaging, Department of Radiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School of Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
Center for Hearing and Deafness, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United States.
Front Neurosci. 2019 Mar 19;13:246. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2019.00246. eCollection 2019.
Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), sometimes accompanied with tinnitus, is associated with dysfunctions within and outside the classical auditory pathway. The salience network, which is anchored in bilateral anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, has been implicated in sensory integration. Partial auditory deprivation could alter the characteristics of the salience network and other related brain areas, thereby contributing to hearing impairments-induced neuropsychiatric symptoms. To test this hypothesis, we performed fMRI scanning and neuropsychological tests on 32 subjects with long-term bilateral hearing impairment and 30 well-matched Controls. Non-directional functional connectivity and directional Granger causality analysis were used to identify aberrant spatial and temporal patterns of connections targeting bilateral anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. We found that the left anterior insula showed decreased connectivity with right precentral gyrus and superior frontal gyrus. The connections between the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and middle frontal gyrus, superior parietal gyrus and supplementary motor area (SMA) were also reduced. Relative to Controls, SNHL patients showed abnormal effective connectivity of the salience network, including inferior temporal gyrus, cerebellum lobule VI, lobule VIII, precentral gyrus, middle frontal gyrus and SMA. Furthermore, correlation analysis demonstrated that some of these atypical connectivity measures were correlated with performance of neuropsychiatric tests. These findings suggest that the inefficient modulation of the salience network might contribute to the neural basis of SNHL and tinnitus, as well as associated cognition and emotion deficits.
感音神经性听力损失（SNHL）有时伴有耳鸣，与经典听觉通路内外的功能障碍有关。以双侧前脑岛和背侧前扣带回皮质为核心的突显网络参与了感觉整合。部分听觉剥夺可能会改变突显网络及其他相关脑区的特征，进而导致听力损伤诱发的神经精神症状。为验证这一假设，我们对32名长期双侧听力损伤的受试者和30名匹配良好的对照组进行了功能磁共振成像扫描和神经心理学测试。采用非定向功能连接和定向格兰杰因果分析来识别针对双侧前脑岛和背侧前扣带回皮质的连接异常的空间和时间模式。我们发现左侧前脑岛与右侧中央前回和额上回的连接性降低。背侧前扣带回皮质与额中回、顶上回及辅助运动区（SMA）之间的连接也减少。相对于对照组，SNHL患者突显网络的有效连接异常，包括颞下回、小脑小叶VI、小叶VIII、中央前回、额中回和SMA。此外，相关性分析表明，其中一些非典型连接测量与神经精神测试的表现相关。这些发现表明，突显网络的低效调节可能是SNHL和耳鸣以及相关认知和情感缺陷的神经基础。
