BOLD-fMRI of auditory cortical responses in patients with unilateral sensorineural hearing loss

Objective Auditory cortical response to amplitude modulation(AM)was evaluated using BOLD-fMRI in the patients with unilateral sensorineural hearing loss(USNHL).Methods A total of 21 patients with USNHL(left in 13 ears,right in 8 ears)was examined with BOLD-fMRI in response to AM tones of 500Hz with the modulation frequency at 8Hz.An event-related design was combined with a sparse clustered volume acquisitioning paradigm in data collection in the attempt to reduce the influence of acoustic scanner noise.With 1.5T MRI imaging system,BOLD-fMRI data of brain cortex were collected and analyzed using SPM2 softwere to produce a dynamic images of the brain.Results When the auditory signals were given to unilateral ear of USNHL patients,bilateral auditory cortexes were activated with a clear contralateral predominance.Conclusion The results indicate that the plasticity and strueturdlly remoduling of auditory cortex of patients with USNHL exist.