Altered brain responses to emotional facial expressions in tinnitus patients.
Prog Brain Res
; 262: 189-207, 2021.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33931179
ABSTRACT
Tinnitus, the phantom perception of sound, is a frequent disorder that can lead to severe distress and stress-related comorbidity. The pathophysiological mechanisms involved in the etiology of tinnitus are still under exploration. Electrophysiological and functional neuroimaging studies provide increasing evidence for abnormal functioning in auditory but also in non-auditory, e.g., emotional, brain areas. In order to elucidate alterations of affective processing in patients with chronic tinnitus, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure neural responses to emotionally expressive and neutral faces. Twelve patients with chronic tinnitus and a group of 11 healthy controls, matched for age, sex, hearing loss and depressive symptoms were investigated. While viewing emotionally expressive faces compared to neutral faces brain activations in the tinnitus patients differed from those of the controls in a cluster that encompasses the amygdala, the hippocampus and the parahippocampal gyrus bilaterally. Whereas in controls affective faces induced higher brain activation in these regions than neutral faces, these regions in tinnitus patients were deactivated. Our results (1) provide evidence for alterations of affective processing of facial expressions in tinnitus patients indicating general domain-unspecific dysfunctions in emotion processing and (2) indicate the involvement of medial temporal areas in the pathophysiology of tinnitus.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Acúfeno
/
Expresión Facial
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Prog Brain Res
Año:
2021
Tipo del documento:
Article