Researchers from the University of Colorado exploring the ways in which our brains respond to hearing loss have found that the brain reorganizes, which may be related to a link between age-related hearing loss and dementia. The results suggest that the portion of the brain devoted to hearing can become reorganized—reassigned to other functions—even with early-stage of hearing loss, and may play a role in cognitive decline.

Anu Sharma, PhD, a researcher in the Department of Speech Language and Hearing Science at the University of Colorado, used electro-encephalographic (EEG) recordings of adults and children with deafness and lesser hearing loss to gain insights into the ways their brains respond differently from those of people with normal hearing. Sharma discovered that the areas of the brain responsible for processing vision or touch can recruit areas in which hearing is normally processed. This is called “cross-modal” cortical reorganization and reflects a fundamental property of the brain to compensate in response to its environment.

Sharma and her research team also reportedly made the discovery that cross-modal recruitment of the hearing portion of the brain by the senses of vision and touch happens not only in deaf patients, but is also apparent in adult patients with only a mild degree of hearing loss.

“The hearing areas of the brain shrink in age-related hearing loss,” said Sharma. “Centers of the brain that are typically used for higher-level decision-making are then activated in just hearing sounds. These compensatory changes increase the overall load on the brains of aging adults….Given that even small degrees of hearing loss can cause secondary changes in the brain, hearing screenings for adults and intervention in the form of hearing aids should be considered much earlier to protect against reorganization of the brain.”

Content from Hearing Review