Treatment of Age-Related Hearing Loss Alters Audiovisual Integration and Resting-State Functional Connectivity: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial

Untreated age-related hearing loss increases audiovisual integration and impacts resting state functional brain connectivity. Further, there is a relation between crossmodal plasticity and audiovisual integration strength in cochlear implant patients. However, it is currently unclear whether amplifi...

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Published ineNeuro Vol. 8; no. 6; p. ENEURO.0258-21.2021
Main Authors Rosemann, Stephanie, Gieseler, Anja, Tahden, Maike, Colonius, Hans, Thiel, Christiane M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Society for Neuroscience 01.11.2021
Subjects
Auditory Cortex - diagnostic imaging
Auditory Perception
Hearing Loss
Humans
Infant
New Research
Pilot Projects
Speech Perception
Visual Perception
fMRI
plasticity
resting state
audiovisual
hearing aid
neuroimaging
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Summary:Untreated age-related hearing loss increases audiovisual integration and impacts resting state functional brain connectivity. Further, there is a relation between crossmodal plasticity and audiovisual integration strength in cochlear implant patients. However, it is currently unclear whether amplification of the auditory input by hearing aids influences audiovisual integration and resting state functional brain connectivity. We conducted a randomized controlled pilot study to investigate how the McGurk illusion, a common measure for audiovisual integration, and resting state functional brain connectivity of the auditory cortex are altered by six-month hearing aid use. Thirty-two older participants with slight-to-moderate, symmetric, age-related hearing loss were allocated to a treatment or waiting control group and measured one week before and six months after hearing aid fitting with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Our results showed a statistical trend for an increased McGurk illusion after six months of hearing aid use. We further demonstrated that an increase in McGurk susceptibility is related to a decreased hearing aid benefit for auditory speech intelligibility in noise. No significant interaction between group and time point was obtained in the whole-brain resting state analysis. However, a region of interest (ROI)-to-ROI analysis indicated that hearing aid use of six months was associated with a decrease in resting state functional connectivity between the auditory cortex and the fusiform gyrus and that this decrease was related to an increase of perceived McGurk illusions. Our study, therefore, suggests that even short-term hearing aid use alters audiovisual integration and functional brain connectivity between auditory and visual cortices.
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S. Rosemann’s present address: Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition, Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC, 20057.
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Anja Gieseler’s present address: Rehabilitation Science, Department of Health Services Research, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg 26111, Germany.
This work was supported by the Hearing Industry Research Consortium (IRC) Grant 2017; the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy, EXC 2177/1, Project ID 390895286; and by the Neuroimaging Unit of the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg funded by grants from DFG (3T MRI INST 184/152-1 FUGG). S.R. is supported by the DFG Grant RO6114/1-1.
Author contributions: C.M.T., S.R., A.G., M.T., and H.C. designed research; A.G. and M.T. performed research; S.R. and A.G. analyzed data; C.M.T., S.R., and A.G. wrote the paper.
ISSN:2373-2822
2373-2822
DOI:10.1523/ENEURO.0258-21.2021