Functional connectivity alteration of the deprived auditory regions with cognitive networks in deaf and inattentive adolescents.

Jianhong Li,Weiwei Men,Yang Wang,David Chao Dong Zhu,Junfang Xian,Xiaoxia Qu,Jia-Hong Gao

doi:10.1007/s11682-022-00632-x

Abstract

Adolescents with early profound deafness may present with distractibility and inattentiveness. The brain mechanisms underlying these attention impairments remain unclear. We performed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the functional connectivity of the superior temporal and transverse temporal gyri in 25 inattentive adolescents with bilateral prelingual profound deafness, and compared the results with those of 27 age-matched normal controls. Pearson and Spearman's rho correlation analyses were used to investigate the correlations of altered functional connectivity with theclinical parameters, including the duration of hearing loss sign language, and hearing aid usage. Compared with normal controls, prelingual profound deafness demonstrated mainly decreased resting-state functional connectivity between the deprived auditory regions and several other brain functional networks, including the attention control, language comprehension, default-mode, and sensorimotor networks. Moreover, we also found enhanced resting-state functional connectivity between the deprived auditory cortex and salience network. These results indicate a negative impact of early hearing loss on the attentional and other high cognitive networks, and the use of sign language and hearing aids normalized the participants' connectivity between the primary auditory cortex and attention networks, which is crucial for the early intervention and clinical care of deaf adolescents.

Highlights

Hearing loss affects many aspects of an individual’s life
We found that the deaf group had significantly lower scores in the cognitive functions of language, attention, visuospatial/executive, abstraction, and delayed recall
We investigated the effects of bilateral prelingual profound auditory deprivation in adolescents on RSFC between the auditory network and other brain functional networks

Summary

Introduction

Cognitive decline is commonly observed in deaf individuals, especially in profoundly deaf adolescents This includes decline in language development (Cupples et al, 2018), reading comprehension (Wauters, van Bon, Tellings, & van Leeuwe, 2006; Daza, Phillips-Silver, Ruiz-Cuadra, & López-López, 2014), and executive function (Hall, Eigsti, Bortfeld, & LilloMartin, 2018). This evidence suggests that hearing loss may lead to cognitive impairment in profoundly deaf adolescents, which can be labeled as the deficit hypothesis. There has been little agreement on whether early deafness leads to attentional deficits and/or compensatory enhancement These two different views were attributed to the different types of performed test tasks and the ages of the participants enrolled in these studies. To reconcile these opposite views, Dye and Bavelier (2010)

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Conclusion