A Bidirectional Relationship Between Hearing Loss and Cognitive Decline?

In today's open access review paper, researchers lay out summarize hypotheses and evidence for there to be a bidirectional relationship between age-related hearing loss and loss of cognitive function. Their summary is informative, but in their view the present literature is too sparse to be conclusive, and further studies are needed to provide a greater breadth of human data. There is good reason to think that hearing loss contributes directly to a more rapid pace of cognitive decline. The brain is very much a "use it or lose it" organ, and lacking use in later life, it declines more rapidly. Evidence from study populations with age-related hearing loss have compared the trajectories of those fitted with hearing aids versus those who were not, showing a greater incidence of dementia in those without augmented hearing. When it comes to causation in the other direction, much of the thinking centers around common cause mechanisms of neurodegeneration. The same issues of chronic inflammation and cellular dysfunction that harm the brain also harm the sensory hair cells of the inner ear and their connections to the brain. It is also possible that complex issues situated entirely in the aging brain may contribute to difficulties in processing of auditory information that appear very similar to hearing loss. Which Came First, Age-Related Hearing Loss with Tinnitus or Cognitive Impairment? What are the Potential Pathways? Age-related hearing loss (ARHL), ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs