Grey matter connectivity within and between auditory, language and visual systems in prelingually deaf adolescents

Purpose: Previous studies have shown brain reorganizations after early deprivation of auditory sensory. However, changes of grey matter connectivity have not been investigated in prelingually deaf adolescents yet. In the present study, we aimed to investigate changes of grey matter connectivity within and between auditory, language and visual systems in prelingually deaf adolescents. Methods: We recruited 16 prelingually deaf adolescents and 16 age-and gender-matched normal controls, and extracted the grey matter volume as the structural characteristic from 14 regions of interest involved in auditory, language or visual processing to investigate the changes of grey matter connectivity within and between auditory, language and visual systems. Sparse inverse covariance estimation (SICE) was utilized to construct grey matter connectivity between these brain regions. Results: The results show that prelingually deaf adolescents present weaker grey matter connectivity within auditory and visual systems, and connectivity between language and visual systems declined. Notably, significantly increased brain connectivity was found between auditory and visual systems in prelingually deaf adolescents. Conclusions: Our results indicate “cross-modal” plasticity after deprivation of the auditory input in prelingually deaf adolescents, especially between auditory and visual systems. Besides, auditory deprivation and visual deficits might affect the connectivity pattern within language and visual systems in prelingually deaf adolescents.