White matter integrity of hearing and cognitive impairments in healthy aging

IF 4.7 2区医学 Q1 NEUROIMAGING NeuroImage Pub Date : 2025-03-18 DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121135

Samaneh Nemati , Meisam Arjmandi , Jean Neils-Strunjas , Roger D. Newman-Norlund , Sarah E. Newman-Norlund , Laura Droege , Leonardo Bonilha , Julius Fridriksson

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Abstract

Age-Related Hearing Loss (ARHL), or presbycusis, affects two-thirds of U.S. adults over 70 and is linked to cognitive decline and an increased risk of dementia. This study examines associations between white matter integrity and hearing and cognitive function in healthy aging using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

We recruited 126 participants (92 female) aged 20–79 years (

M e a n = 51.34, S D = 20.54

) from the Aging Brain Cohort Study at the University of South Carolina (ABC@UofSC). Cognitive performance was assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and hearing was evaluated through pure-tone thresholds (PTT) and words-in-noise (WIN) thresholds. White matter integrity was measured with fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD), and analyses examined relationships between these DTI metrics and hearing and cognitive scores using the region-of-interest regression analysis.

Results showed significant associations between lower FA and higher MD values and poorer hearing and cognitive performance, particularly in the anterior and superior corona radiata, corpus callosum, and superior longitudinal fasciculus. Additionally, ANOVA comparisons between older adults with and without hearing impairments revealed significant MD differences in several regions, indicating specific microstructural changes linked to auditory impairment.

This study contributes to the understanding of the neural bases of hearing and cognitive impairments, underscoring the potential of DTI as a complementary tool to gray matter-based studies in exploring reliable imaging evidence of hearing and cognitive impairments in healthy aging across adulthood.

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年龄相关性听力损失（ARHL）或老花眼影响着三分之二 70 岁以上的美国成年人，并与认知能力下降和痴呆症风险增加有关。我们从南卡罗来纳大学（ABC@UofSC）的老年脑队列研究（Aging Brain Cohort Study）中招募了 126 名参与者（92 名女性），年龄在 20-79 岁之间（平均值=51.34，标准差=20.54）。认知能力通过蒙特利尔认知评估（MoCA）进行评估，听力则通过纯音阈值（PTT）和噪声词阈值（WIN）进行评估。结果显示，较低的FA值和较高的MD值与较差的听力和认知能力之间存在显著关联，尤其是在放射冠前部和上部、胼胝体和上纵筋束。此外，对有听力障碍和无听力障碍的老年人进行方差分析比较后发现，有几个区域的MD值存在显著差异，这表明特定的微结构变化与听力障碍有关。这项研究有助于人们了解听力和认知障碍的神经基础，强调了DTI作为基于灰质的研究的补充工具，在探索整个成年期健康老龄化过程中听力和认知障碍的可靠成像证据方面的潜力。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

NeuroImage 医学-核医学

CiteScore

11.30

自引率

10.50%

发文量

809

审稿时长

63 days

期刊介绍： NeuroImage, a Journal of Brain Function provides a vehicle for communicating important advances in acquiring, analyzing, and modelling neuroimaging data and in applying these techniques to the study of structure-function and brain-behavior relationships. Though the emphasis is on the macroscopic level of human brain organization, meso-and microscopic neuroimaging across all species will be considered if informative for understanding the aforementioned relationships.