TY - JOUR
T1 - Aberrant Functional and Causal Connectivity in Acute Tinnitus With Sensorineural Hearing Loss
AU - Cai, Yuexin
AU - Xie, Mingwei
AU - Su, Yun
AU - Tong, Zhaopeng
AU - Wu, Xiaoyan
AU - Xu, Wenchao
AU - Li, Jiahong
AU - Zhao, Fei
AU - Dang, Caiping
AU - Chen, Guisheng
AU - Lan, Liping
AU - Shen, Jun
AU - Zheng, Yiqing
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2020 Cai, Xie, Su, Tong, Wu, Xu, Li, Zhao, Dang, Chen, Lan, Shen and Zheng.
PY - 2020/6/30
Y1 - 2020/6/30
N2 - Purpose: The neural bases in acute tinnitus remains largely undetected. The objective of this study was to identify the alteration of the brain network involved in patients with acute tinnitus and hearing loss. Methods: Acute tinnitus patients (n = 24) with hearing loss and age-, sex-, education-matched healthy controls (n = 21) participated in the current study and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. Regional homogeneity and amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation were used to investigate the local spontaneous neural activity and functional connectivity (FC), and Granger causality analysis (GCA) was used to analyze the undirected and directed connectivity of brain regions. Results: Compared with healthy subjects, acute tinnitus patients had a general reduction in FC between auditory and non-auditory brain regions. Based on FC analysis, the superior temporal gyrus (STG) revealed reduced undirected connectivity with non-auditory brain regions including the amygdala (AMYG), nucleus accumbens (NAc), the cerebellum, and postcentral gyrus (PoCG). Using the GCA algorithm, increased effective connectivity from the right AMYG to the right STG, and reduced connectivity from the right PoCG to the left NAc was observed in acute tinnitus patients with hearing loss. The pure-tone threshold was positively correlated with FC between the AMYG and STG, and negatively correlated with FC between the left NAc and the right PoCG. In addition, a negative association between the GCA value from the right PoCG to the left NAc and the THI scores was observed. Conclusion: Acute tinnitus patients have aberrant FC strength and causal connectivity in both the auditory and non-auditory cortex, especially in the STG, AMYG, and NAc. The current findings will provide a new perspective for understanding the neuropathophysiological mechanism in acute tinnitus.
AB - Purpose: The neural bases in acute tinnitus remains largely undetected. The objective of this study was to identify the alteration of the brain network involved in patients with acute tinnitus and hearing loss. Methods: Acute tinnitus patients (n = 24) with hearing loss and age-, sex-, education-matched healthy controls (n = 21) participated in the current study and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. Regional homogeneity and amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation were used to investigate the local spontaneous neural activity and functional connectivity (FC), and Granger causality analysis (GCA) was used to analyze the undirected and directed connectivity of brain regions. Results: Compared with healthy subjects, acute tinnitus patients had a general reduction in FC between auditory and non-auditory brain regions. Based on FC analysis, the superior temporal gyrus (STG) revealed reduced undirected connectivity with non-auditory brain regions including the amygdala (AMYG), nucleus accumbens (NAc), the cerebellum, and postcentral gyrus (PoCG). Using the GCA algorithm, increased effective connectivity from the right AMYG to the right STG, and reduced connectivity from the right PoCG to the left NAc was observed in acute tinnitus patients with hearing loss. The pure-tone threshold was positively correlated with FC between the AMYG and STG, and negatively correlated with FC between the left NAc and the right PoCG. In addition, a negative association between the GCA value from the right PoCG to the left NAc and the THI scores was observed. Conclusion: Acute tinnitus patients have aberrant FC strength and causal connectivity in both the auditory and non-auditory cortex, especially in the STG, AMYG, and NAc. The current findings will provide a new perspective for understanding the neuropathophysiological mechanism in acute tinnitus.
KW - acute tinnitus
KW - causal connectivity
KW - functional connectivity
KW - functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
KW - hearing loss
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087905209&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fnins.2020.00592
DO - 10.3389/fnins.2020.00592
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087905209
SN - 1662-4548
VL - 14
JO - Frontiers in Neuroscience
JF - Frontiers in Neuroscience
M1 - 592
ER -