Functional connectivity changes in infants with varying degrees of unilateral hearing loss

It has been proved that unilateral hearing loss (UHL) can cause functional connectivity alterations in adults. However, the mechanism of the human brain coping with the challenge of unilateral hearing deprivation at very early developmental phases remains poorly understood. Here, we performed a resting-state functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study on 3- to 10-month-old infants with varying degrees of unilateral hearing loss to investigate the effect of unilateral auditory deprivation in infants. Using network-based statistics, increased functional connectivity was observed in single-sided deafness (SSD) compared with normal hearing infants, and the right middle temporal gyrus was the most involved nodes. In addition, changes in cortical function in infants were related to the degree of hearing loss, with significantly increased functional connectivity in infants with severe to profound unilateral hearing loss compared with the ones with mild to moderate. Moreover, more significant cortical functional recombination changes were found in right-SSD than in left-SSD infants. For the first time, our study provides evidence for the effects of unilateral hearing deprivation on the early cortical development of the human brain, which would also act as a reference for intervention decisions in children with unilateral hearing loss in clinical settings.