[Brain plastic alterations in subjects with chronic right-sided sensorineural hearing loss: a resting-state MRI study].

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the nodal properties and reorganization of whole-brain functional network in subjects with severe right-sided SNHL.

METHODS

From June 2012 to June 2013, a total of 19 patients with severe right-sided SNHL were collected from Zhongda Hospital or the recruitment advertising along with 31 healthy controls.Based on the graph-theoretical analysis, the whole-brain functional networks were constructed using the BOLD-fMRI data of all subjects.Two sample two-tailed t-tests were used to investigate the differences between two groups in nodal metrics, such as node degree, node betweenness, node global efficiency and node local efficiency.All metrics were corrected by multiple comparisons.Partial correlation analysis was used to estimate the relationship between the significant metrics and the duration or severity of hearing loss.

RESULTS

The right-sided SNHL showed significantly increased betweenness centrality in left supramarginal gyrus and right fusiform.However, other nodal parameters showed no statistical difference.Besides, patients exhibited no significant association between the altered metrics and clinical variables.

CONCLUSION

Alterations of local topological properties may underlie cerebral cross-modal plastic reorganization in visual or speech-related regions in severe right-sided SNHL patients.