Analysis of Changes in Brain Region and Connectomics in the Acute Stage of Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss in the Resting State via Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Abstract

To explore the functional changes in the whole brain network in patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SHL) at the acute stage from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) imaging evaluation results, 80 patients with sudden right SHL were selected as subjects (patient group). In addition, 40 healthy volunteers who underwent physical examination in the hospital during the same period were recruited as a control group. fMRI imaging was performed to analyze functional parameters and core nodes of the whole brain network. It was found that at all thresholds, the fMRI parameters Cp and Lp of the patient group were dramatically superior to those of the control group. The fMRI parameter Eglobal of the patient group was substantially lower than that of the control group ( $P<0.05$ ). At most of the thresholds, the fMRI parameter λ in patients was dramatically superior to that in the control group ( $P<0.05$ ). There were ten specific network core nodes in patients, including the right parahippocampal gyrus, right supra-occipital gyrus, left suboccipital gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, right parietal lobule, right subparietal lobule, right superior temporal gyrus, left superior marginal gyrus, and right superior temporal gyrus. In summary, the whole brains of patients with sudden SHL still had small-world attributes, but some characteristics of the brain network had changed, and there was a trend of transformation to a regular network. The connection between the auditory brain area and the functional areas related to language and vision was weakened, and the distribution of core nodes changed. This study provides a reference basis for exploring the changes in local brain and connectome levels in patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss in the acute phase based on resting-state fMRI.