Dysconnectivity Involving Multiple Resting-State Networks Associated with Cognitive and Emotional Functions in Long-Term Sensorineural Hearing Loss Patients

Background: Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is accepted to involve wide-ranging functional reorganization, which is associated with accumulating risk of cognitive and emotional dysfunction. The coordination of multiple functional networks supports normal brain functions. However, the evaluation of the functional connectivity (FC) pattern involving multiple resting-state networks (RSNs), and the correlations between the functional remodeling of RSNs and the potential cognitive or emotional impairments in SNHL have never been conducted. Methods: 30 long-term bilateral SNHL patients and 39 well-matched healthy controls were recruited for assessment of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and neuropsychological test. Findings: Using independent component analysis (ICA), 11 RSNs were identified. Relative to the healthy controls, the SNHL population presented apparent abnormalities of intra-network FC involving right frontoparietal network (rFPN), posterior temporal network (pTMN) and sensory motor network (SMN). Disrupted between-network FC were also revealed in the SNHL patients across both higher-order cognitive control networks and multiple sensory networks. Eight of the eleven RSNs showed altered functional synchronization using a seed network to whole brain FC method, particularly in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Besides, these functional abnormalities were correlated with cognition- and emotion-related performances. Interpretations: These findings supported our hypotheses that long-term SNHL involves notable dysconnectivity of multiple RSNs. This study provided important insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms of SNHL, and shed more lights on the neural substrates underlying the possible cognitive and emotional dysfunctions following SNHL, which would make sense to find the potential biomarker for clinical applications. Funding: This work is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NOs. 81520108015 and 81230034), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NO. 2242018k30004) and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (NOs. 2013CB733800 and 2013CB733803). Declaration of Interest: None of the materials in this manuscript has been published. All the authors have approved the manuscript. There are no potential conflicts of interests to declare. Ethical Approval: This work was proved by the Ethics Committee of Affiliated Zhongda Hospital of Southeast University, and the informed consent was obtained from each of the participants before the experiments.