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Altered structural connectome of children with auditory processing disorder: a diffusion MRI study
Ashkan Alvand1,2, Abin Kuruvilla-Mathew1,2, Reece P Roberts1,3
1School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, The University of Auckland, Auckland central, Auckland 1010, New Zealand.
Insights
Children with auditory processing disorder (APD) show altered brain structural networks at a regional level, impacting listening skills. These findings suggest multimodal deficits and structure-function changes contribute to APD in children.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Neuroimaging
Background:
- Auditory processing disorder (APD) affects school-aged children with normal hearing.
- Previous research shows altered functional brain topology in APD using resting-state fMRI.
- The structural connectome in APD remains underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate structural brain network differences in children with APD compared to healthy controls (HC).
- To examine rich-club organization and regional structural connections in APD.
- To explore structure-function relationships in auditory tasks.
Main Methods:
- Diffusion MRI data from 58 children (29 APD, 29 HC, ages 8-14) were analyzed.
- Rich-club organization and edge-wise structural connections were compared between groups.
- Regional network metrics, including average path length (APL) and betweenness centrality, were assessed.
Main Results:
- No significant differences in rich-club organization or edge-wise connections were found between APD and HC groups.
- Children with APD exhibited increased APL in the right inferior parietal lobule and betweenness centrality in the inferior precentral gyrus.
- Healthy controls showed a positive association between APL and performance on a spatialized noise listening task in the left orbital gyrus.
Conclusions:
- Structural brain networks are altered at a regional level in children with APD.
- These alterations suggest the involvement of multimodal deficits in APD.
- Findings support a role for structure-function alterations in the listening difficulties experienced by children with APD.
Abstract:
Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a listening impairment that some school-aged children may experience despite having normal peripheral hearing. Recent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has revealed an alteration in regional functional brain topology in children with APD. However, little is known about the structural organization in APD. We used diffusion MRI data to investigate the structural connectome of 58 children from 8 to 14 years old diagnosed with APD (n = 29) and children without hearing complaints (healthy controls, HC; n = 29). We investigated the rich-club organization and structural connection differences between groups. The APD group showed similar rich-club organization and edge-wise connection compared with the HC group. However, at the regional level, we observed increased average path length (APL) and betweenness centrality in the right inferior parietal lobule and inferior precentral gyrus, respectively, in the APD group. Only HCs demonstrated a positive association between APL and the listening-in-spatialized-noise-sentences task in the left orbital gyrus. In line with previous findings, the current results provide evidence for altered structural networks at the regional level in the APD group, suggesting the involvement of multimodal deficits and a role for structure-function alteration in the listening difficulties of children with APD.
