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. 2011 Nov;82(11):1274-8.
doi: 10.1136/jnnp.2010.235473. Epub 2011 Apr 28.

Structural neuroanatomy of tinnitus and hyperacusis in semantic dementia

Colin J Mahoney  1 , Jonathan D Rohrer, Johanna C Goll, Nick C Fox, Martin N Rossor, Jason D Warren
Affiliations

Structural neuroanatomy of tinnitus and hyperacusis in semantic dementia

Colin J Mahoney et al. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2011 Nov.

Abstract

Introduction: Tinnitus and hyperacusis are common symptoms of excessive auditory perception in the general population; however, their anatomical substrates and disease associations continue to be defined.

Patients: with semantic dementia (SemD) frequently report tinnitus and hyperacusis but the significance and basis for these symptoms have not been elucidated.

Methods: 43 patients with a diagnosis of SemD attending a specialist cognitive disorders clinic were retrospectively studied. 14 patients (32% of the cohort) reported at least moderately severe chronic auditory symptoms: seven had tinnitus and a further seven had hyperacusis, and all had brain MRI while symptomatic. MRI data from SemD patients with and without auditory symptoms were compared using voxel based morphometry in order to identify neuroanatomical associations of tinnitus and hyperacusis.

Results: Compared with SemD patients with no history of auditory symptoms, patients with tinnitus or hyperacusis had relative preservation of grey matter in the posterior superior temporal lobe and reduced grey matter in the orbitofrontal cortex and medial geniculate nucleus.

Conclusions: Tinnitus and hyperacusis may be a significant issue in SemD. Neuroanatomical evidence in SemD supports previous work implicating a distributed cortico-subcortical auditory and limbic network in the pathogenesis of these abnormal auditory percepts.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Statistical parametric maps of grey matter differences associated with auditory symptom status have been rendered on the mean T1-weighted normalised DARTEL brain image for the SemD cohort. For display purposes, all maps are thresholded at p <0.001 uncorrected and show clusters >30 voxels in size; for all regions shown, local maxima were significant at p<0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons over the pre-specified anatomical volume of interest (see text). T score is coded on the colour bar (lower right). L, left; R, right; *axial sections have been tilted to run along the superior temporal sulcus (showing auditory association cortex).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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