Presbycusis Flashcards
What are the two most common causes of hearing loss?
Advanced age
Noise exposure
What is presbycusis?
Age related hearing loss
Gradual decline of hearing
Onset and rate of progression is variable
What causes presbycusis?
Progressive loss/degeneration of endocochlear potential, IHCs, and synapses
Changes in the peripheral and central auditory system
Why does the human auditory system decline?
Because it lacks the ability to regenerate
Does presbycusis have a varied and not well-understood etiology?
Yes
Is the auditory system susceptible to wear and tear due to living?
Yes, no one lives in a bubble
Wear starts early and intensively in civilized societies rich in noise
What were the early findings of presbycusis site of lesion?
Primary site was the cochlea and secondary was central involvement due to reduced sensory input
What are the recent findings regarding site of lesion?
Central auditory system undergoes direct morphological and physiological changes independently of peripheral involvement
Does the prevalence of hearing loss increase with age?
Yes
Do men tend to have worse hearing as they grow older than women?
Yes
Do African Americans consistently show lower incidence of hearing loss in the elderly population?
Yes
What is the formula for presbycusis?
Genetics/(ototoxic drugs + noise exposure + age)
Why is there difficulty studying the effects of purely aging?
Environmental noise exposure (lifetime of continuous noise and some high level noise exposure)
Drugs (some are ototoxic, others may have effects after long term use)
Genetics
How did they determine that there is age related hearing loss and not just related to environmental noise?
Animal models and studies
Does extremely high aerobic metabolism take place in the lateral wall of the cochlea?
Yes
Oxygen based metabolism
Anything that effects the blood supply will cause problems with hearing (oxygen in blood)
What do we need high metabolism for?
Maintenance of K+ gradient between endolymph and perilymph
Generation of the endocochlear potential (EP)
Where is mechanical and metabolic damage observed most commonly?
At the basilar end and basal turn of the cochlea
What type of hearing loss is presbycusis?
Slowly progressive
Sloping
High frequency SNHL
What is age-related hearing loss that is not complicated by environmental factors caused by?
Degenerative changes/pathologies of the lateral cochlear wall and not just simply due to a loss of cochlear hair cells
What are the three systems of the cochlea that provide sound sensitivity particularly for high frequencies?
The cochlear amplifier
The power supply
The transduction mechanism
What is the cochlear amplifier?
The active processes located in the OHCs that amplify sound vibrations inside the cochlea
What is the power supply?
The cochlear lateral wall tissue, including stria vascularis, that provides the power the cochlear amplifier needs to function effectively
What is the transduction mechanism?
IHCs and afferent nerve fibers of the auditory nerve that receive the amplified vibrations from the OHCs
They convert the vibrations into neural excitation patterns that are sent to the brain
How much sensitivity loss occurs with the loss of OHCs?
40 to 50 dB HL