EARLY AUDITORY DEPRIVATION IS ASSOCIATED WITH LOCALIZED REORGANIZATION OF STRUCTURAL BRAIN NETWORKS

Perinatal deafness is associated with enhanced visual abilities, particularly in motion detection and peripheral vision, a phenomenon commonly referred to as cross-modal plasticity. While functional reorganization following auditory deprivation has been widely documented, it remains unclear whether such adaptations extend to white-matter pathways and, if so, whether these reorganizations have functional consequences. To address this question, we investigated diffusion-based MRI data from 12 domestic cats (6 hearing, 6 perinatally deafened), matched for age and sex, using a combination of graph-theoretical metrics, gradient-based analyses, and network control theory applied to structural connectivity. At the global network level, most graph measures were preserved between groups, indicating overall stability of connectome organization. Regional analyses, however, revealed localized reconfiguration, with a subset of nodes showing altered community affiliation, indicating selective adjustments in approximately 8% of cortical nodes (p < 0.001). To further characterize these changes, we examined the low-dimensional structure of subcortical–cortical and corticocortical connectivity using gradient-based approaches focused on auditory-related subcortical nuclei, as well as primary auditory and primary visual cortices. While the principal organizational axes were largely preserved, localized differences in gradient structure and cortical projection patterns were observed between two groups. Finally, network control analyses revealed reduced energetic demands for transitions from visual cortex to frontal and prefrontal regions in the deaf brain (reductions of 1.06%, p < 0.001), indicating enhanced efficiency of visual-to-higher-order communication. Together, these findings suggest that early auditory deprivation induces localized yet coherent changes in structural organization and network dynamics that may support cross-modal functional adaptation.