Pure tone audiometry and cerebral pathology in healthy older adults.
Parker, Thomas;
Cash, David M;
Lane, Chris;
Lu, Kirsty;
Malone, Ian B;
Nicholas, Jennifer M;
James, Sarah;
Keshavan, Ashvini;
Murray-Smith, Heidi;
Wong, Andrew;
+10 more...Buchannan, Sarah;
Keuss, Sarah;
Sudre, Carole H;
Thomas, David;
Crutch, Sebastian;
Bamiou, Doris-Eva;
Warren, Jason D;
Fox, Nick C;
Richards, Marcus;
Schott, Jonathan M;
(2019)
Pure tone audiometry and cerebral pathology in healthy older adults.
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 91 (2).
pp. 172-176.
ISSN 0022-3050
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp-2019-321897
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BACKGROUND: Hearing impairment may be a modifiable risk factor for dementia. However, it is unclear how hearing associates with pathologies relevant to dementia in preclinical populations. METHODS: Data from 368 cognitively healthy individuals born during 1 week in 1946 (age range 69.2-71.9 years), who underwent structural MRI, 18F-florbetapir positron emission tomography, pure tone audiometry and cognitive testing as part of a neuroscience substudy the MRC National Survey of Health and Development were analysed. The aim of the analysis was to investigate whether pure tone audiometry performance predicted a range of cognitive and imaging outcomes relevant to dementia in older adults. RESULTS: There was some evidence that poorer pure tone audiometry performance was associated with lower primary auditory cortex thickness, but no evidence that it predicted in vivo β-amyloid deposition, white matter hyperintensity volume, hippocampal volume or Alzheimer's disease-pattern cortical thickness. A negative association between pure tone audiometry and mini-mental state examination score was observed, but this was no longer evident after excluding a test item assessing repetition of a single phrase. CONCLUSION: Pure tone audiometry performance did not predict concurrent β-amyloid deposition, small vessel disease or Alzheimer's disease-pattern neurodegeneration, and had limited impact on cognitive function, in healthy adults aged approximately 70 years.