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. 2022 Aug 8;12(8):1049.
doi: 10.3390/brainsci12081049.

Intrinsic Network Changes in Bilateral Tinnitus Patients with Cognitive Impairment: A Resting-State Functional MRI Study

Wei Li  1 , Xiaobo Ma  2 , Qian Wang  1 , Xueying He  1   3 , Xiaoxia Qu  1 , Lirong Zhang  1 , Lanyue Chen  1 , Zhaohui Liu  1
Affiliations

Intrinsic Network Changes in Bilateral Tinnitus Patients with Cognitive Impairment: A Resting-State Functional MRI Study

Wei Li et al. Brain Sci. .

Abstract

Previous studies have found a link between tinnitus and cognitive impairment, even leading to dementia. However, the mechanisms underlying this association are not clear. The purpose of this study was to explore intrinsic network changes in tinnitus and hearing loss patients with cognitive disorders. We included 17 individuals with bilateral idiopathic tinnitus, hearing loss, and cognitive impairment (PA) and 21 healthy controls. We identified resting-state networks (RSNs) and measured intra-network functional connectivity (FC) values via independent component analysis (ICA). We also evaluated correlations between RSNs and clinical characteristics. Compared with the healthy controls, the PA group showed decreased connectivity within the ventral attention network, dorsal attention network (DAN), visual network, left frontoparietal network, right frontoparietal network, sensorimotor network, and increased connectivity within the executive control network. MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) scores were negatively correlated with the FC values for left calcarine within the DAN. We identified abnormal intrinsic connectivity in several brain networks, mainly involving cognitive control, vision, sensorimotor function, and the cerebellum, in tinnitus patients with cognitive impairment. It may be possible to use the FC strength of the left calcarine within the DAN as an imaging marker to predict cognitive impairment in tinnitus patients.

Keywords: cognitive impairment; functional connectivity; hearing loss; independent component analysis; resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging; tinnitus.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sixteen meaningful resting-state networks identified by ICA. IC: independent component; LFPN: left frontoparietal network; RFPN: right frontoparietal network; DAN: dorsal attention network; ECN: executive control network; VN: visual network; SMN: sensorimotor network; AN: auditory network; DMN: default mode network; VAN: ventral attention network.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Brain regions within RSNs were significantly different between the PA and HC groups (A). The X-axis represents the brain regions contained in the RSNs, and the Y-axis represents the mean value of the intrinsic FC signal (B). The detailed regions can be found in Table 2.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Correlations between clinical characteristics and FC values of abnormal brain regions in patients with bilateral idiopathic tinnitus and hearing loss with cognitive impairment. Hearing thresholds were negatively correlated with FC values of the left paracentral lobule within the paracentral lobule (r = −0.531, p = 0.028). MoCA scores were negatively correlated with FC values of the left calcarine within the dorsal attention network (r = −0.607, p = 0.010). BDI scores were negatively correlated with FC values of the left Crus 1 within the visual network (r = −0.549, p = 0.022).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Correlations between clinical characteristics and FC values of abnormal brain regions in patients with bilateral idiopathic tinnitus and hearing loss with cognitive impairment. Hearing thresholds were negatively correlated with FC values of the left paracentral lobule within the paracentral lobule (r = −0.531, p = 0.028). MoCA scores were negatively correlated with FC values of the left calcarine within the dorsal attention network (r = −0.607, p = 0.010). BDI scores were negatively correlated with FC values of the left Crus 1 within the visual network (r = −0.549, p = 0.022).
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