Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains
The overall function and associated structure of the brain changes dramatically following early-onset hearing loss in a process known as compensatory crossmodal plasticity. As the microscale changes to cerebral morphology driving these adaptations can be reflected macrostructurally in MRI analyses,...
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Elsevier
2025-03-01
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| Series: | NeuroImage: Reports |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666956025000078 |
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| author | Stephen G. Gordon Alessandra Sacco Stephen G. Lomber |
| author_facet | Stephen G. Gordon Alessandra Sacco Stephen G. Lomber |
| author_sort | Stephen G. Gordon |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The overall function and associated structure of the brain changes dramatically following early-onset hearing loss in a process known as compensatory crossmodal plasticity. As the microscale changes to cerebral morphology driving these adaptations can be reflected macrostructurally in MRI analyses, high interregional correlations in features such as gray matter thickness are potentially indicative of functional relationships. To probe the changes in these associations following deafness using structure alone, perinatally-deafened and hearing control cats were scanned at 7T to obtain high-resolution T1-weighted images. After calculating regional thicknesses for 146 cortical areas, the 10,585 associated pairwise correlations were used to establish group-specific structural connectomes. Similar distributions of correlation strength were revealed between the two populations, however there was an overall increase in the density of the structurally-defined connectome following deafness. The connections demonstrating the most dramatic increases of correlational strength in the deprived group were those relating to the auditory and visual cortices, with a more balanced distribution of increases and decreases to connections involving solely non-sensory regions. In corroboration with previous feline structural- and diffusion-based neuroimaging literature, these results imply a reorganization of cortical gray matter to increase the overall processing of the remaining senses within a potentially less complex and more redundant connectome. The present study adds to the developing field of deafness literature through the implementation of novel analyses that add an additional perspective on neuroplasticity within the feline brain. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-6759bdee04df4024866a0dcac8fe9a1f |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2666-9560 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-03-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | NeuroImage: Reports |
| spelling | doaj-art-6759bdee04df4024866a0dcac8fe9a1f2025-02-09T05:01:37ZengElsevierNeuroImage: Reports2666-95602025-03-0151100239Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brainsStephen G. Gordon0Alessandra Sacco1Stephen G. Lomber2Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Corresponding author. Department of Physiology, McGill University, McIntyre Medical Sciences Building, Rm 1223 3655 Promenade Sir-William-Osler Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1Y6 Canada.Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, CanadaIntegrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, CanadaThe overall function and associated structure of the brain changes dramatically following early-onset hearing loss in a process known as compensatory crossmodal plasticity. As the microscale changes to cerebral morphology driving these adaptations can be reflected macrostructurally in MRI analyses, high interregional correlations in features such as gray matter thickness are potentially indicative of functional relationships. To probe the changes in these associations following deafness using structure alone, perinatally-deafened and hearing control cats were scanned at 7T to obtain high-resolution T1-weighted images. After calculating regional thicknesses for 146 cortical areas, the 10,585 associated pairwise correlations were used to establish group-specific structural connectomes. Similar distributions of correlation strength were revealed between the two populations, however there was an overall increase in the density of the structurally-defined connectome following deafness. The connections demonstrating the most dramatic increases of correlational strength in the deprived group were those relating to the auditory and visual cortices, with a more balanced distribution of increases and decreases to connections involving solely non-sensory regions. In corroboration with previous feline structural- and diffusion-based neuroimaging literature, these results imply a reorganization of cortical gray matter to increase the overall processing of the remaining senses within a potentially less complex and more redundant connectome. The present study adds to the developing field of deafness literature through the implementation of novel analyses that add an additional perspective on neuroplasticity within the feline brain.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666956025000078Structural MRICompensatory crossmodal plasticityGray matterSensory cortex |
| spellingShingle | Stephen G. Gordon Alessandra Sacco Stephen G. Lomber Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains NeuroImage: Reports Structural MRI Compensatory crossmodal plasticity Gray matter Sensory cortex |
| title | Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains |
| title_full | Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains |
| title_fullStr | Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains |
| title_full_unstemmed | Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains |
| title_short | Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains |
| title_sort | regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains |
| topic | Structural MRI Compensatory crossmodal plasticity Gray matter Sensory cortex |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666956025000078 |
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