Professor Suzanne Purdy at the University of Auckland, PhD candidate Ashkan Alvand, and colleagues have recently published some of their work mapping brain connectivity in children with auditory processing disorder (APD). They used resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate functional brain network organisation in 28 children with APD, many recruited from the SoundSkills APD Clinic caseload, and 29 typically developing (TD) children. The findings show evidence of altered brain network organisation in children with APD, specific to auditory networks, and shed new light on the neural systems underlying hearing and listening difficulties in children. This study adds to the extensive research literature on physiological underpinnings of APD, showing differences in the auditory systems of children with APD from the pons at lower brainstem level up to the auditory cortex.
Alvand, A., Kuruvilla-Mathew, A., Kirk, I. J., Roberts, R. P., Pedersen, M., & Purdy, S. C. (2022). Altered brain network topology in children with auditory processing disorder: A resting-state multi-echo fMRI study. NeuroImage: Clinical, 35, 103139.