Center for Studies of Psychological Application and School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China.
Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3), Research Centre Jülich, Wilhelm-Johnen-Strasse, Jülich 52428, Germany.
Cereb Cortex. 2023 Nov 4;33(22):11126-11145. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhad351.
Early auditory deprivation leads to a reorganization of large-scale brain networks involving and extending beyond the auditory system. It has been documented that visuomotor transformation is impaired after early deafness, associated with a hyper-crosstalk between the task-critical frontoparietal network and the default-mode network. However, it remains unknown whether and how the reorganized large-scale brain networks involving the auditory cortex contribute to impaired visuomotor transformation after early deafness. Here, we asked deaf and early hard of hearing participants and normal hearing controls to judge the spatial location of a visual target. Compared with normal hearing controls, the superior temporal gyrus showed significantly increased functional connectivity with the frontoparietal network and the default-mode network in deaf and early hard of hearing participants, specifically during egocentric judgments. However, increased superior temporal gyrus-frontoparietal network and superior temporal gyrus-default-mode network coupling showed antagonistic effects on egocentric judgments. In deaf and early hard of hearing participants, increased superior temporal gyrus-frontoparietal network connectivity was associated with improved egocentric judgments, whereas increased superior temporal gyrus-default-mode network connectivity was associated with deteriorated performance in the egocentric task. Therefore, the data suggest that the auditory cortex exhibits compensatory neuroplasticity (i.e. increased functional connectivity with the task-critical frontoparietal network) to mitigate impaired visuomotor transformation after early auditory deprivation.
早期听觉剥夺会导致涉及听觉系统内外的大规模脑网络重组。有文献记录表明，早期耳聋后会损害视动转换，这与任务关键的额顶网络与默认模式网络之间的过度串扰有关。然而，目前尚不清楚听觉皮层参与的重组的大规模脑网络是否以及如何导致早期耳聋后视动转换受损。在这里，我们要求聋人和早期重听参与者以及正常听力对照者判断视觉目标的空间位置。与正常听力对照者相比，在聋人和早期重听参与者中，颞上回与额顶网络和默认模式网络的功能连接显著增加，特别是在自我中心判断时。然而，颞上回-额顶网络和颞上回-默认模式网络耦合的增加对自我中心判断有拮抗作用。在聋人和早期重听参与者中，颞上回-额顶网络的连接增加与自我中心判断的改善有关，而颞上回-默认模式网络的连接增加与自我中心任务的表现恶化有关。因此，数据表明，听觉皮层表现出代偿性神经可塑性（即与任务关键的额顶网络的功能连接增加），以减轻早期听觉剥夺后视动转换受损。
