FIGURE 5.

Functional connectivity alterations resulting from conductive hearing loss as assessed by rsfMRI. (A) Seeds used for SBA and masks for ICA were used to delineate ROI for the bilateral auditory cortex, somatosensory cortex, and IC rsfMRI networks. (B) The SBA rsfMRI connectivity was significantly decreased in the auditory cortex and IC after CHL (p < 0.01), however, remaining unchanged in the somatosensory cortex. The bar plots indicate the correlation coefficient before (blue) and after (red) CHL, demonstrating a decrease of 42.27% and 42.50% for the auditory cortex and IC, respectively. (C) The ICA rsfMRI connectivity was decreased in the auditory cortex after CHL, and was unchanged in the somatosensory cortex. The bar plots indicate the z-score before (blue) and after (red) CHL, demonstrating a decrease of 27.11% for the auditory cortex. Both SBA and ICA demonstrate rsfMRI networks decrease after CHL.