Functional Changes Affect Hearing In The Elderly

Studies were performed to test the functional changes in the human auditory cortex and

how those changes affect hearing in the elderly. Ageing causes pathologies which can result in

hearing loss such as degeneration of grey and white matter, deterioration leading to cognitive

decline, and changes in levels of cortical metabolites. Individuals with those pathologies are

more vulnerable to develop age related hearing loss, also known as presbycusis. According to

ProfantO,TintěraJ,BalogováZ,IbrahimI, JilekM,SykaJ, it is said that hearing loss is one of the

most prevalent sensory deficits that affect the elderly population. This is a result from the long

exposure to noise, systemic diseases, ototoxic agents or a combination of all

This all takes place in the auditory cortex and

is one of the centrals components of presbycusis. Temporal processing is decreased in the elderly

who have hearing loss specifically related to high frequencies. There were 48 subjects tested and

divided into three groups. The group studied were 15 elderlies, ages 65-72 with mild

presbycusis, 15 elderlies, ages 64-79 with expressed presbycusis, and 18 young adults, ages 22-

30, used as controls. Several tests included Tympanometry, bone conduction, oto-acoustic

emissions, speech audiometry, and functional MRI examination of the auditory cortex. Results

show that after the presbycusis was examined during auditory cortex activation, both elderly

groups showed significantly higher activation compared to the younger group used as controls.

It has been proven that there is peripheral deterioration in humans. However, it was unclear as to

whether central components showed any sign of deterioration. This is because of the mask of

deterioration of cognitive functions, decreases in certain neurotransmitters and gray and white

matter which all still play a role in hearing loss. Results of the MRI showed a loss

In my opinion I felt this article was very informative. There were a variety of tests that

were tried to look at different aspects of the hearing loss. Also, it was good that the elderly was

compared to some of the younger individuals who have yet to go through some of the age-related

changes that may affect the hearing loss. What I didn’t like was that there were only forty-eight

individuals studied instead of a larger population. A larger population may have given more

definite answers however, the results the researchers came up with seemed to be accurate and

they had reasons to back up their conclusions and results. One thing I did not mention in my

summary but I found to be something that was of importance when testing these individuals was

the fact that “All the examined subjects declared they had had no previous otologicsurgery,

vestibular lesion, tinnitus, severe head trauma, lesion of the facial nerve, disorder of the cervical

spine, self-reported central nervous system disorder, or contraindication for safe MRI scanning.”

The researches did a good job or ruling on any possible problem that may have led to inaccurate

results.