Treat Your Hearing Loss for Your Brain Health

Thanks to magnetic imaging, scientists can watch the brain and see how it activates in response to certain sounds. They've discovered that we don't hear with just one part of our brain. The process of hearing also stimulates other brain areas. Scientists believe there's a dual-track association between hearing and cognition. Sound activates the auditory cortex; then the cerebral cortex and cognitive processes influence how we hear.

Because there is a decline in sound stimuli and sensory deprivation, hearing loss can lead to structural and functional changes in the brain. These structural and functional changes can affect the brain's capacity to process and perceive sounds and may contribute to cognitive decline.

The brain is forced to compensate for these losses by activating alternative circuits. It enlists accessory neuron networks and that means increased cognitive effort is needed to weed out irrelevant sounds, like background noise, and more concentration is needed for hearing.

A high cognitive effort reduces the amount of brain resources available to process everything else. There's less of a cognitive reserve to tap into. So, things like concentration, memory and planning capacity may be affected. It's easier to get distracted. And constantly decoding and processing sounds can take up a lot of mental resources which can be tiring, eventually leading to potential withdrawal from social interactions.

This may explain why we see up to five times higher risk of dementia in people with untreated hearing loss. (Johns Hopkins study).