Abstract
The deprivation of sensory input after hearing damage results in functional reorganization of the brain including cross-modal plasticity in the sensory cortex and changes in cognitive processing. However, it remains unclear whether partial deprivation from unilateral auditory loss (UHL) would similarly affect the neural circuitry of cognitive processes in addition to the functional organization of sensory cortex. Here, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate intrinsic activity in 34 participants with UHL from acoustic neuroma in comparison with 22 matched normal controls. In sensory regions, we found decreased regional homogeneity (ReHo) in the bilateral calcarine cortices in UHL. However, there was an increase of ReHo in the right anterior insular cortex (rAI), the key node of cognitive control network (CCN) and multimodal sensory integration, as well as in the left parahippocampal cortex (lPHC), a key node in the default mode network (DMN). Moreover, seed-based resting–state functional connectivity analysis showed an enhanced relationship between rAI and several key regions of the DMN. Meanwhile, lPHC showed more negative relationship with components in the CCN and greater positive relationship in the DMN. Such reorganizations of functional connectivity within the DMN and between the DMN and CCN were confirmed by a graph theory analysis. These results suggest that unilateral sensory input damage not only alters the activity of the sensory areas but also reshapes the regional and circuit functional organization of the cognitive control network.
Highlights
The functional organization of brain continues to change after prenatal development and can undergo remodeling throughout a person’s life to adapt to changing sensory experiences [1,2]
Abnormal Regional Activity of unilateral hearing loss (UHL) Patients in regional homogeneity (ReHo) The ANOVA of ReHo showed significant group differences in cortical regions, including left parahippocampal cortex, right anterior insular cortex, and bilateral calcarine cortices, indicating that the neural synchronization of local brain areas during resting state were reshaped by auditory deprivation in UHL
Post-hoc pairwise comparisons showed increased strength of functional connectivity in UHL patients compared to normal controls by using left parahippocampal cortex (lPHC) and right anterior insular cortex (rAI) as seeds, while no findings of decreased resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) strength in UHL
Summary
The functional organization of brain continues to change after prenatal development and can undergo remodeling throughout a person’s life to adapt to changing sensory experiences [1,2]. There are at least two important forms of remodeling of the brain during hearing damage: the cross-modal plasticity implies that functional reorganization in sensory regions compensate for the compromised hearing input by optimizing multi-sensory perception [6] and changes in cognitive function suggest that more cognitive resources must be engaged during auditory processing to compensate for hearing impairment [11,19] Unlike those with bilateral deafness, unilateral hearing loss (UHL) individuals preserve much of the ability to capture auditory information, and the changes in auditory processing are more complicated [23,24,25,26]. It remains unclear whether the deprivation of unilateral auditory input would affect the neural circuitry of the cognitive control network in addition to sensory cortex
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