ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Neurocognitive Aging and Behavior
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1662732
Early-life hearing loss induces persistent cognitive deficits: Evidence from human data and a mouse model with environmental intervention
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Anesthesiology, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
- 2ENT Institute and Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
- 3Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Anesthesia Critical Care & Pain Medicine, Boston, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Hearing loss during early life has been linked to later cognitive decline, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. To investigate the cognitive impact of early hearing loss in humans, adults aged 18–40 years with severe childhood hearing loss were evaluated using standardized cognitive assessments. In parallel mouse studies, a mouse model of sensorineural hearing loss was established to assess memory function, hippocampal microglial activation, Tau phosphorylation, and synaptic integrity at 1 and 4 months post-insult. Mice were also exposed to environmental enrichment to test its therapeutic effects. Our data showed that individuals with early hearing loss had a significantly increased risk of cognitive impairment (OR = 1.010, 95% CI: 1.002–1.017, P = 0.011). Hearing-impaired mice showed progressive memory deficits, neuroinflammation, Tau hyperphosphorylation, and synaptic loss in the hippocampus. Environmental enrichment improved cognitive performance in affected mice. This study demonstrates that early-life hearing loss induces persistent cognitive deficits in humans, and induces hippocampal pathology in mice. Environmental enrichment effectively improve cognitive performance in affected mice, suggesting that timely interventions may help mitigate adverse outcomes
Keywords: Early-life hearing loss, Cognitive Function, long-term effects, neurodegeneration, enriched environment
Received: 09 Jul 2025; Accepted: 27 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Yu, Wang, Chen, Shen and Xie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xia Shen, Department of Anesthesiology, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.