Speck I, Arndt S, Thurow J, et al. - This study was carried out to apply PET to assess the glucose metabolism of the inferior colliculus (IC) and primary auditory cortex (PAC) in patients with asymmetric hearing loss (AHL). This study investigated normalized regional ¹⁸F-FDG uptake of the IC and PAC (reference: cerebellum) in 13 participants with AHL using a fully digital clinical PET/CT system. Compared with the ipsilateral side, regional metabolism of both the IC and the PAC was significantly reduced contralateral to the most hearing-impaired ear. This study showed that fully digital, high-resolution clinical PET scanners allow for examining small brain stem nuclei. It was noted that AHL has a significant effect on the regional glucose metabolism of the auditory pathway. The outcomes indicated that mitigation of this impact by a longer duration of deafness might show reorganization at the cortical level.