TY - JOUR
T1 - Cortical thickness of left Heschl's gyrus correlates with hearing acuity in adults – A surface-based morphometry study
AU - Neuschwander, Pia
AU - Hänggi, Jürgen
AU - Zekveld, Adriana A.
AU - Meyer, Martin
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - To date, research examining the relationship between brain structure and hearing acuity is sparse, especially given the context of a broad age range. To investigate this relationship, we applied an automated surface-based morphometry (SBM) approach (FreeSurfer) in this study to re-examine a sample of normal-hearing (n = 17) and hearing-impaired (n = 17) age- and education-matched adults, aged between 20 and 63 years (Alfandari et al., 2018). The SBM approach allows the disentanglement of cortical surface area (CSA) from cortical thickness (CT), the 2 independent constituents of cortical volume (CV). We extend the findings of Alfandari and colleagues by showing several clusters in auditory-related areas as well as in the left and right angular gyrus that showed reduced CT, CSA and CV in hearing-impaired compared to normal-hearing listeners. Nevertheless, none of the clusters found correlated significantly with hearing acuity, measured by pure-tone thresholds, in the 2 groups. An additional vertex-wise correlation analysis between hearing acuity and morphometric parameters over all participants revealed a single significant cluster encompassing the left Heschl's gyrus. Higher hearing thresholds were associated with a thinner cortex within this cluster. Our results imply that hearing impairment is associated with reduced thickness in primary and secondary auditory cortex regions, those regions especially involved in perceiving and processing relevant speech cues. This decrease was observed not only in older but also in younger and middle-aged adults, independent of age-related decline in the cognitive domain and age-dependent whole-brain atrophy. Further, the results show the value added when considering CV, CT and CSA separately, relative to previous studies which have solely relied on voxel-based morphometry to investigate brain structure and hearing acuity across the lifespan.
AB - To date, research examining the relationship between brain structure and hearing acuity is sparse, especially given the context of a broad age range. To investigate this relationship, we applied an automated surface-based morphometry (SBM) approach (FreeSurfer) in this study to re-examine a sample of normal-hearing (n = 17) and hearing-impaired (n = 17) age- and education-matched adults, aged between 20 and 63 years (Alfandari et al., 2018). The SBM approach allows the disentanglement of cortical surface area (CSA) from cortical thickness (CT), the 2 independent constituents of cortical volume (CV). We extend the findings of Alfandari and colleagues by showing several clusters in auditory-related areas as well as in the left and right angular gyrus that showed reduced CT, CSA and CV in hearing-impaired compared to normal-hearing listeners. Nevertheless, none of the clusters found correlated significantly with hearing acuity, measured by pure-tone thresholds, in the 2 groups. An additional vertex-wise correlation analysis between hearing acuity and morphometric parameters over all participants revealed a single significant cluster encompassing the left Heschl's gyrus. Higher hearing thresholds were associated with a thinner cortex within this cluster. Our results imply that hearing impairment is associated with reduced thickness in primary and secondary auditory cortex regions, those regions especially involved in perceiving and processing relevant speech cues. This decrease was observed not only in older but also in younger and middle-aged adults, independent of age-related decline in the cognitive domain and age-dependent whole-brain atrophy. Further, the results show the value added when considering CV, CT and CSA separately, relative to previous studies which have solely relied on voxel-based morphometry to investigate brain structure and hearing acuity across the lifespan.
KW - Cortical thickness
KW - Hearing loss
KW - Heschl's gyrus
KW - Structural plasticity
KW - Surface-based morphometry
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074128016&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2019.107823
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2019.107823
M3 - Article
C2 - 31678891
SN - 0378-5955
VL - 384
JO - Hearing research
JF - Hearing research
M1 - 107823
ER -