• Yu-Chen Chen, Wenqing Xia, Yuan Feng, Xiaowei Li, Jian Zhang, Xu Feng, Cong-Xiao Wang, Yu Cai, Jian Wang, Richard Salvi, and Gao-Jun Teng.
• Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Functional Imaging, Department of Radiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China ; Center for Hearing and Deafness, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA.
• Biomed Res Int. 2015 Jan 1; 2015: 345647.

AbstractPurpose. Recent studies suggest that tinnitus may be due in part to aberrant callosal structure and interhemispheric interaction. To explore this hypothesis we use a novel method, voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC), to examine the resting-state interhemispheric functional connectivity and its relationships with clinical characteristics in chronic tinnitus patients. Materials and Methods. Twenty-eight chronic tinnitus patients with normal hearing thresholds and 30 age-, sex-, education-, and hearing threshold-matched healthy controls were included in this study and underwent the resting-state fMRI scanning. We computed the VMHC to analyze the interhemispheric functional coordination between homotopic points of the brain in both groups. Results. Compared to the controls, tinnitus patients showed significantly increased VMHC in the middle temporal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and superior occipital gyrus. In tinnitus patients, a positive correlation was found between tinnitus duration and VMHC of the uncus. Moreover, correlations between VMHC changes and tinnitus distress were observed in the transverse temporal gyrus, superior temporal pole, precentral gyrus, and calcarine cortex. Conclusions. These results show altered interhemispheric functional connectivity linked with specific tinnitus characteristics in chronic tinnitus patients, which may be implicated in the neuropathophysiology of tinnitus.

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