Tinnitus and hyperacusis involve hyperactivity and enhanced connectivity in auditory-limbic-arousal-cerebellar network
Abstract
Hearing loss often triggers an inescapable buzz (tinnitus) and causes everyday sounds to become intolerably loud (hyperacusis), but exactly where and how this occurs in the brain is unknown. To identify the neural substrate for these debilitating disorders, we induced both tinnitus and hyperacusis with an ototoxic drug (salicylate) and used behavioral, electrophysiological, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to identify the tinnitus–hyperacusis network. Salicylate depressed the neural output of the cochlea, but vigorously amplified sound-evoked neural responses in the amygdala, medial geniculate, and auditory cortex. Resting-state fMRI revealed hyperactivity in an auditory network composed of inferior colliculus, medial geniculate, and auditory cortex with side branches to cerebellum, amygdala, and reticular formation. Functional connectivity revealed enhanced coupling within the auditory network and segments of the auditory network and cerebellum, reticular formation, amygdala, and hippocampus. A testable model accounting for distress, arousal, and gating of tinnitus and hyperacusis is proposed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- May 12, 2015
- Source ID
- 10.7554/elife.06576
Entities
People
- Chun-qiang Lu
- Feng-chao Zang
- Gao-jun Teng
- Guang-di Chen
- Jian Wang
- Kelly Radziwon
- Lijie Liu
- Ming Yang
- Richard Salvi
- Vijaya Prakash Krishnan Muthaiah
- Wei Sun
- Xiaowei Li
- Yu-Chen Chen
- Yun Jiao
Organizations
- China Scholarship Council
- Dalhousie University
- Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
- National Institutes of Health
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province
- Office of Naval Research
- Southeast University
- University at Buffalo