Blast-induced hearing loss suppresses hippocampal neurogenesis and disrupts long term spatial memory.

ABSTRACT: Acoustic information transduced by cochlear hair cells is continuously relayed from the auditory pathway to other sensory, motor, emotional and cognitive centers in the central nervous system. Human epidemiological studies have suggested that hearing loss is a risk factor for dementia and cognitive decline, but the mechanisms contributing to these memory and cognitive impairments are poorly understood. To explore these issues in a controlled experimental setting, we exposed adult rats to a series of intense blast wave exposures that significantly reduced the neural output of the cochlea. Several weeks later, we used the Morris Water Maze test, a hippocampal-dependent memory task, to assess the ability of Blast Wave and Control rats to learn a spatial navigation task (memory acquisition) an

SUBMITTER: Manohar S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9063718 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature