MRI links hearing loss to increased dementia risk

MRI has shown that hearing loss may increase dementia risk in seniors not yet cognitively impaired in ways distinct from those that tend to be associated with conditions such as Alzheimer's and cerebrovascular disease.A team led by Thomas Parker, MD, of the Imperial College London in the U.K. found that, compared with older adults who did not have hearing impairment, those who did had faster rates of whole brain atrophy. The findings were published April 3 in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry."Our data suggest a complex interplay of hearing ability, neurodegeneration, and cognition and implicate pathways separate to those typically implicated in Alzheimer’s and cerebrovascular disease," the team noted.Previous research has suggested that hearing loss is a modifiable risk factor for dementia, Parker and colleagues explained. But the link between hearing, neurodegeneration, and cognitive change remains unclear. Parker's team sought to address this knowledge gap by conducting a study that included information from 287 adults born in the same week of 1946 who underwent baseline pure tone audiometry and cognitive assessment/multimodal brain MRI exams at two different time points. The group defined hearing impairment at baseline as a pure tone average of greater than 25 decibels in the best hearing ear; estimated rates of change for whole brain, hippocampal,  and ventricle volume from the MRI exams; and assessed study participants' cognition using the Pre-cli...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Subspecialties Neuroradiology Source Type: news