Open AccessTinnitus and auditory cortex: using adapted functional near-infrared spectroscopy to measure resting-state functional connectivity
Author(s) -
Juan D San Juan,
Tianqu Zhai,
Angela Ash-Rafzadeh,
XiaoSu Hu,
Jessica Kim,
Charles Filipak,
Kaiwen Guo,
M. N. Islam,
Ioulia Kovelman,
Gregory J. Basura
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
neuroreport/neuroreport
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.607
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1473-558X
pISSN - 0959-4965
DOI - 10.1097/wnr.0000000000001561
Subject(s) - auditory cortex , neuroscience , functional near infrared spectroscopy , tinnitus , psychology , temporal cortex , auditory perception , cortex (anatomy) , resting state fmri , audiology , brain activity and meditation , inferior colliculus , medicine , electroencephalography , perception , cognition , prefrontal cortex , nucleus
Tinnitus, phantom sound perception, arises from aberrant brain activity within auditory cortex. In tinnitus animal models, auditory cortex neurons show increased spontaneous firing and neural synchrony. In humans, similar hyperactivation in auditory cortex has been displayed with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) or increased connectivity between brain regions has also been shown in tinnitus using fNIRS. However, current fNIRS technology utilizes infrared (IR)-sources and IR-detectors placed on the scalp that restricts (~3 cm depth IR penetration) signal capture to outer cerebral cortex due to skin and skull bone. To overcome this limitation, in this proof of concept study, we adapted fNIRS probes to fit in the external auditory canal (EAC) to physically place IR-probes deeper within the skull thereby extracting neural signals from deeper auditory cortex.