Dissociation between Cerebellar and Cerebral Neural Activities in Humans with Long-Term Bilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss

作者：Xiaomin Xu, Yun Jiao, Tianyu Tang, Jian Zhang, Chun‐Qiang Lu, Ying Luan, Richard Salvi, Gao‐Jun Teng · 发表于：Neural Plasticity · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1155/2019/8354849 · 被引用次数：34 · 研究领域：Vestibular and auditory disorders、Hearing, Cochlea, Tinnitus, Genetics、Neural dynamics and brain function

Abnormal neural activity in the cerebellum has been implicated in hearing impairments, but the effects of long-term hearing loss on cerebellar function are poorly understood. To further explore the role of long-term bilateral sensorineural hearing loss on cerebellar function, we investigated hearing loss-induced changes among neural networks within cerebellar subregions and the changes in cerebellar-cerebral connectivity patterns using resting-state functional MRI. Twenty-one subjects with long-term bilateral moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss and 21 matched controls with clinically normal hearing underwent MRI scanning and a series of neuropsychological tests targeting cognition and emotion. Voxel-wise functional connectivity (FC) analysis demonstrated decreased couplings between the cerebellum and other cerebral areas, including the temporal pole (TP), insula, supramarginal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), medial frontal gyrus, and thalamus, in long-term bilateral sensorineural hearing loss patients. An ROI-wise FC analysis found weakened interregional connections within cerebellar subdivisions. Moreover, there was a negative correlation between anxiety and FC between the left cerebellar lobe VI and left insula. Hearing ability and anxiety scores were also correlated with FC between the left cerebellar lobe VI and left TP, as well as the right cerebellar lobule VI and left IFG. Our results suggest that sensorineural hearing loss disrupts cerebellar-cerebral c...