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High-Resolution fMRI of Auditory Cortical Map Changes in Unilateral Hearing Loss and Tinnitus

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Abstract

Animal models of hearing loss and tinnitus observe pathological neural activity in the tonotopic frequency maps of the primary auditory cortex. Here, we applied ultra high-field fMRI at 7 T to test whether human patients with unilateral hearing loss and tinnitus also show altered functional activity in the primary auditory cortex. The high spatial resolution afforded by 7 T imaging allowed tonotopic mapping of primary auditory cortex on an individual subject basis. Eleven patients with unilateral hearing loss and tinnitus were compared to normal-hearing controls. Patients showed an over-representation and hyperactivity in a region of the cortical map corresponding to low frequencies sounds, irrespective of the hearing loss and tinnitus range, which in most cases affected higher frequencies. This finding of hyperactivity in low frequency map regions, irrespective of hearing loss range, is consistent with some previous studies in animal models and corroborates a previous study of human tinnitus. Thus these findings contribute to accumulating evidence that gross cortical tonotopic map reorganization is not a causal factor of tinnitus.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant 320030_143989 and by the Centre d’Imagerie BioMédicale (CIBM) of the Université de Lausanne, Université de Genève, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève, Lausanne University Hospital, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and the Leenaards and Louis-Jeantet Foundations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Bioengineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Naghmeh Ghazaleh, Dimitri Van De Ville & Melissa Saenz

  2. Department of Radiology and Medical Informatics, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Naghmeh Ghazaleh & Dimitri Van De Ville

  3. Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging, Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Wietske van der Zwaag

  4. Center for Biomedical Imaging, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Wietske van der Zwaag

  5. Service of Neuropsychology and Neurorehabilitation, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Stephanie Clarke

  6. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Raphael Maire

  7. Neuroimaging Research Lab (LREN), Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Melissa Saenz

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  1. Naghmeh Ghazaleh
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  2. Wietske van der Zwaag
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  3. Stephanie Clarke
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  4. Dimitri Van De Ville
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Correspondence to Naghmeh Ghazaleh.

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Ghazaleh, N., Zwaag, W.v.d., Clarke, S. et al. High-Resolution fMRI of Auditory Cortical Map Changes in Unilateral Hearing Loss and Tinnitus. Brain Topogr 30, 685–697 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-017-0547-1

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