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Abstract
ObjectiveThe objective was to evaluate the association of peripheral and central hearing abilities with cognitive function in older adults.MethodsRecruited from epidemiological studies of aging and cognition at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, participants were a community-dwelling cohort of older adults (range 63–98 years) without diagnosis of dementia. The cohort contained roughly equal numbers of Black (n=61) and White (n=63) subjects with groups similar in terms of age, gender, and years of education. Auditory abilities were measured with pure-tone audiometry, speech-in-noise perception, and discrimination thresholds for both static and dynamic spectral patterns. Cognitive performance was evaluated with a 12-test battery assessing episodic, semantic, and working memory, perceptual speed, and visuospatial abilities.ResultsAmong the auditory measures, only the static and dynamic spectral-pattern discrimination thresholds were associated with cognitive performance in a regression model that included the demographic covariates race, age, gender, and years of education. Subsequent analysis indicated substantial shared variance among the covariates race and both measures of spectral-pattern discrimination in accounting for cognitive performance. Among cognitive measures, working memory and visuospatial abilities showed the strongest interrelationship to spectral-pattern discrimination performance.ConclusionsFor a cohort of older adults without diagnosis of dementia, neither hearing thresholds nor speech-in-noise ability showed significant association with a summary measure of global cognition. In contrast, the two auditory metrics of spectral-pattern discrimination ability significantly contributed to a regression model prediction of cognitive performance, demonstrating association of central auditory ability to cognitive status using auditory metrics that avoided the confounding effect of speech materials.
Highlights
Aging is characterized by both sensory and cognitive decline
Only the static and dynamic spectral-pattern discrimination thresholds were associated with cognitive performance in a regression model that included the demographic covariates race, age, gender, and years of education
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
Summary
Aging is characterized by both sensory and cognitive decline. Significant association between hearing loss, as measured by detection thresholds for pure-tone stimuli, and cognitive function has been reported in some [1,2,3,4,5] but not all studies of older adults [6,7,8,9,10,11]. A variety of factors have been proposed as a basis for the relationship between hearing acuity and cognitive performance. Lindenberger and Bates [2] speculated that the association could arise from an age-related decline in the physiological integrity of neural subsystems common to both sensory and cognitive processing. Uhlmann et al [1] proposed that sensory deprivation due to hearing loss may contribute to a subsequent decline in cognitive function. A hearing loss may lead to a reduction in the extent of social interaction with an associated effect on cognitive status [1,5]. In contrast to suggestions of interaction, involvement of independent factors may lead to parallel aging in terms of hearing acuity and cognitive function [7]
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