The effects of aging on auditory cortical function

Hearing Research
Gregg H Recanzone

Abstract

Age-related hearing loss is a prominent deficit, afflicting approximately half of the geriatric population. In many cases, the person may have no deficits in detecting sounds, but nonetheless suffers from a reduced ability to understand speech, particularly in a noisy environment. While rodent models have shown that there are a variety of age-related changes throughout the auditory neuraxis, far fewer studies have investigated the effects at the cortical level. Here I review recent evidence from a non-human primate model of age-related hearing loss at the level of the core (primary auditory cortex, A1) and belt (caudolateral field, CL) in young and aged animals with normal detection thresholds. The findings are that there is an increase in both the spontaneous and driven activity, an increase in spatial tuning, and a reduction in the temporal fidelity of the response in aged animals. These results are consistent with an age-related imbalance of excitation and inhibition in the auditory cortex. These spatial and temporal processing deficits could underlie the major complaint of geriatrics, that it is difficult to understand speech in noise.

Citations

Sep 29, 2019·Journal of Neuroscience Research·Shmma QuraisheLucy Anderson
May 18, 2020·Journal of Neuroscience Research·Jianxin BaoNancy Tye-Murray
Sep 3, 2020·Journal of Neurophysiology·Peng ZanJonathan Z Simon
Apr 28, 2020·Journal of the American Academy of Audiology·Julia CampbellAlison LaBrec
Jul 27, 2021·Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience·Zheng LiangXia Gao
Aug 31, 2020·Hearing Research·Samira Anderson, Hanin Karawani

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