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Lookup NU author(s): Dr William Sedley
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Copyright © 2023 Shim, Jung, Billig, Sedley and Song.Objectives: A growing body of evidence suggests that age-related hearing loss (HL) is associated with morphological changes of the cerebral cortex, but the results have been drawn from a small amount of data in most studies. The aim of this study is to investigate the correlation between HL and gray matter volume (GMV) in a large number of subjects, strictly controlling for an extensive set of possible biases. Methods: Medical records of 576 subjects who underwent pure tone audiometry, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and the Korean Mini-Mental State Exam (K-MMSE) were reviewed. Among them, subjects with normal cognitive function and free of central nervous system disorders or coronary artery disease were included. Outliers were excluded after a sample homogeneity check. In the end, 405 subjects were enrolled. Pure tone hearing thresholds were determined at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz in the better ear. Enrolled subjects were divided into 3 groups according to pure tone average: normal hearing (NH), mild HL (MHL), and moderate-to-severe HL (MSHL) groups. Using voxel-based morphometry, we evaluated GMV changes that may be associated with HL. Sex, age, total intracranial volume, type of MRI scanner, education level, K-MMSE score, smoking status, and presence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia were used as covariates. Results: A statistically significant negative correlation between the hearing thresholds and GMV of the hippocampus was elucidated. Additionally, in group comparisons, the left hippocampal GMV of the MSHL group was significantly smaller than that of the NH and MHL groups. Conclusion: Based on the negative correlation between hearing thresholds and hippocampal GMV in cognitively normal old adults, the current study indicates that peripheral deafferentation could be a potential contributing factor to hippocampal atrophy.
Author(s): Shim YJ, Jung WH, Billig AJ, Sedley W, Song J-J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Frontiers in Neuroscience
Year: 2023
Volume: 17
Online publication date: 24/10/2023
Acceptance date: 11/10/2023
Date deposited: 20/11/2023
ISSN (print): 1662-4548
ISSN (electronic): 1662-453X
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
URL: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1276883
DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1276883
Data Access Statement: The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
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