Abnormal regional signal in the left cerebellum as a potential neuroimaging biomarker of sudden sensorineural hearing loss

Abstract

Objective: While prior reports have characterized visible changes in neuroimaging findings in individuals suffering from sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL), the utility of regional homogeneity (ReHo) as a means of diagnosing SSNHL has yet to be established. The present study was thus conducted to assess ReHo abnormalities in SSNHL patients and to establish whether these abnormalities offer value as a diagnostic neuroimaging biomarker of SSNHL through a support vector machine (SVM) analysis approach. Methods: Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) analyses of 27 SSNHL patients and 27 normal controls were conducted, with the resultant imaging data then being analyzed based on a combination of ReHo and SVM approaches. Results: Relative to normal control individuals, patients diagnosed with SSNHL exhibited significant reductions in ReHo values in the left cerebellum, bilateral inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), left superior temporal pole (STP), right parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), left posterior cingulum cortex (PCC), and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG). SVM analyses suggested that reduced ReHo values in the left cerebellum were associated with high levels of diagnostic accuracy (96.30%, 52/54), sensitivity (92.59%, 25/27), and specificity (100.00%, 27/27) when distinguishing between SSNHL patients and control individuals. Conclusion: These data suggest that SSNHL patients exhibit abnormal resting-state neurological activity, with changes in the ReHo of the left cerebellum offering value as a diagnostic neuroimaging biomarker associated with this condition.