Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Jiangning Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, No. 168, Gushan Road, Nanjing, 211100, Jiangsu Province, China.
Department of Radiology, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210006, Jiangsu Province, China.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2022 Feb;16(1):151-160. doi: 10.1007/s11682-021-00486-9. Epub 2021 Jul 23.
The present study combined resting-state functional connectivity (FC) and Granger causality analysis (GCA) to explore frontostriatal network dysfunction in unilateral acute tinnitus (AT) patients with hearing loss.
The participants included 42 AT patients and 43 healthy control (HC) subjects who underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Based on the seed regions in the frontostriatal network, FC and GCA were conducted between the AT patients and HC subjects. Correlation analyses were used to examine correlations among altered FC values, GCA values, and clinical features in AT patients.
Compared with HCs, AT patients showed a general reduction in FC between the seed regions in the frontostriatal network and nonauditory areas, including the frontal cortices, midcingulate cortex (MCC), supramarginal gyrus, and postcentral gyrus (PoCG). Using the GCA algorithm, we detected abnormal effective connectivity (EC) in the inferior occipital gyrus, MCC, Cerebelum_Crus1, and PoCG. Furthermore, correlations between disrupted FC/EC and clinical characteristics, especially tinnitus distress-related characteristics, were found in AT patients.
Our work demonstrated abnormal FC and EC between the frontostriatal network and several nonauditory regions in AT patients with hearing loss, suggesting that multiple large-scale network dysfunctions and interactions are involved in the perception of tinnitus. These findings not only enhance the current understanding of the frontostriatal network in tinnitus but also serve as a reminder of the importance of focusing on tinnitus at an early stage.
本研究结合静息态功能连接（FC）和格兰杰因果分析（GCA），探讨单侧急性耳鸣（AT）伴听力损失患者的额-纹状体网络功能障碍。
参与者包括 42 例 AT 患者和 43 例健康对照（HC），均接受静息态功能磁共振成像（fMRI）扫描。基于额-纹状体网络的种子区域，对 AT 患者和 HC 进行 FC 和 GCA 分析。相关性分析用于检验 AT 患者中改变的 FC 值、GCA 值与临床特征之间的相关性。
与 HC 相比，AT 患者的额-纹状体网络种子区域与非听觉区域（包括额皮质、中扣带回皮质（MCC）、缘上回和后中央回（PoCG））之间的 FC 普遍降低。使用 GCA 算法，我们检测到下枕叶、MCC、小脑 Cerebelum_Crus1 和 PoCG 异常有效连接（EC）。此外，在 AT 患者中发现了 FC/EC 中断与临床特征，尤其是耳鸣困扰相关特征之间的相关性。
我们的研究结果表明，单侧急性耳鸣伴听力损失患者的额-纹状体网络与多个非听觉区域之间存在异常 FC 和 EC，表明多种大规模网络功能障碍和相互作用参与了耳鸣的感知。这些发现不仅增强了对耳鸣中额-纹状体网络的理解，还提醒人们注意早期的耳鸣问题。
