Is Hearing Loss Responsible for Millions of Dementia Cases Worldwide? Here’s What Scientists Say

Is there anyone you know, maybe an elderly in your family, suffering from hearing loss? Chances are, he might have dementia too, later in life.

Scientists have recently developed a new concept on how hearing loss may lead to dementia and believed that dealing with this sensory damage early may help in the prevention of the disease.

It has also recently been reported, the said condition has been presented to be associated with dementia in epidemiological studies "and may be responsible for a tenth of the over 45 million cases globally."

This new theory by a research team at the United Kingdom-based Newcastle University explains how hearing loss can result in Alzheimer's disease or dementia, a notion never observed in the past. The study recently came out in Neuron.

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Hope for this New Theory

According to the study authors, this new concept may be a momentous step towards the advancement of research into Alzheimer's disease, as well as its prevention for future generations. There are three key characteristics Newcastle experts considered in this new understanding: a common primary cause for hearing loss and dementia; absence of, or deficiency in sound-related input resulting in brain shrinking; and damage in cognition leading to individuals needing to be involved in more brain resources to deal with the ear disorder, which then becomes inexistent or inaccessible for other tasks. 

The research team suggested a new angle with a focus on the "memory centers deep in the temporal lobe." This particular project specified that this brain part, usually linked to "long-term memory for places and events," engages the auditory information's short-term storage and manipulation, as well.

The scientists considered explanations for the manner changes in brain activity because of hearing loss might directly stimulate the presence of abnormal proteins that become the main reason for the occurrence of Alzheimer's, thus triggering the disorder.

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The Challenge

Newcastle University's Professor Tim Griffiths said the challenge has been to explain how hearing loss can cause a degenerative problem in the brain.

To address such a challenge, the scientists proposed a new concept based on how what's generally considered the memory system in the brain is used "when one experiences difficulty listening in real-world environments."

Furthermore, the work on mechanisms to deal with the said ear disorder is a central theme for the research team, which includes researchers from Newcastle, UCL, and Iowa University, and had been backed by a program grant from the Medical Research Council.

Faculty of Medical Sciences of Newcastle University's Dr. Will Sedley said, the memory system associated with difficult listening "is the most common site for Alzheimer's disease's onset."

Therefore, he added that they in the research team proposed that "altered activity in the memory system" caused by the ear disorder dementia's process activates each other.

According to Dr. Sedley, researchers currently need to investigate the said mechanism in representations of the pathological process to test if the new concept is right.

These experts developed the principle of this significant association with hearing loss by bringing together findings from different studies on both human and animal models.

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