Abstract
Aim: This study aimed to investigate abnormal static and dynamic functional network connectivity (FNC) and its association with cognitive function in patients with presbycusis.Methods: In total, 60 patients with presbycusis and 60 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls (HCs) underwent resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) and cognitive assessments. Group independent component analysis (ICA) was carried out on the rs-fMRI data, and eight resting-state networks (RSNs) were identified. Static and dynamic FNCs (sFNC and dFNC) were then constructed to evaluate differences in RSN connectivity between the patients with presbycusis and the HCs. Furthermore, the correlations between these differences and cognitive scores were analyzed.Results: Patients with presbycusis had differences in sFNC compared with HCs, mainly reflected in decreased sFNC in the default mode network (DMN)-left frontoparietal network (LFPN) and attention network (AN)-cerebellum network (CN) pairs, but they had increased sFNC in the auditory network (AUN) between DMN domains. The decreased sFNC in the DMN-LFPN pair was negatively correlated with their TMT-B score (r = –0.441, p = 0.002). Patients with presbycusis exhibited aberrant dFNCs in State 2 and decreased dFNCs between the CN and AN and the visual network (VN). Moreover, the presbycusis group had a shorter mean dwell time (MDT) and fraction time (FT) in State 3 (p = 0.0027; p = 0.0031, respectively).Conclusion: This study highlighted differences in static and dynamic functional connectivity in patients with presbycusis and suggested that FNC may serve as an important biomarker of cognitive performance since abnormal alterations can better track cognitive impairment in presbycusis.
Highlights
Presbycusis is the most pervasive sensory deficit affecting elderly individuals and manifests with progressive, bilateral, sensorineural high-frequency hearing loss (Gates and Mills, 2005), resulting from the cumulative influence of aging on the auditory nervous system and binaural hearing ability (Uchida et al, 2019)
There were no significant differences between the presbycusis group and healthy controls (HCs) in terms of age, sex, education level, or middleear function
No significant differences were found in the pure tone average (PTA) between the left and right ears of the patients with presbycusis and the HCs
Summary
Presbycusis (or age-related hearing loss) is the most pervasive sensory deficit affecting elderly individuals and manifests with progressive, bilateral, sensorineural high-frequency hearing loss (Gates and Mills, 2005), resulting from the cumulative influence of aging on the auditory nervous system and binaural hearing ability (Uchida et al, 2019) This disorder is mainly characterized by reduced auditory sensitivity, impaired sound perception and localization, and decreased ability to distinguish speech in noisy environments (Gates and Mills, 2005) and has become the third most prevalent health disorder affecting elderly individuals, after heart disease and arthritis (Mahmoudi et al, 2021). Resting-state functional coupling changes with the progression of presbycusis, as the aggravating degree of hearing loss is accompanied by increased audiovisual integration and decreased connectivity between AUN and motorrelated network (Schulte et al, 2020)
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