Metabolic decline in an insect ear: correlative or causative for age-related auditory decline?

ABSTRACT: One leading hypothesis for why we lose our hearing as we age is a decrease in ear metabolism. However, direct measurements of metabolism across a lifespan in any auditory system are lacking. Even if metabolism does decrease with age, a question remains: is a metabolic decrease a cause of age-related auditory decline or simply correlative? We use an insect, the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria, as a physiologically versatile model to understand how cellular metabolism correlates with age and impacts on age-related auditory decline. We found that auditory organ metabolism decreases with age as measured fluorometrically. Next, we measured the individual auditory organ's metabolic rate and its sound-evoked nerve activity and found no correlation. We found no age-related change in aud

SUBMITTER: Austin TT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10233746 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature