A growing body of literature has demonstrated that dementia and hearing loss are interrelated. Recent interest in dementia research has expanded to brain imaging analyses with auditory function. The aim of this study was to investigate the link between hearing ability, which was assessed using pure-tone audiometry, and the volume of brain regions, specifically the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, Heschl’s gyrus, and total gray matter, using Freesurfer software and T1-weighted brain magnetic resonance imaging. The data for 2082 samples (age range = 40–89 years) were extracted from a population-based cohort of community dwellers. Hearing-impaired individuals showed significantly smaller hippocampal volumes compared with their non-hearing-impaired counterparts for all auditory frequency ranges. In addition, a correlational analysis showed a significant dose-response relationship for hearing ability and hippocampal volume after adjusting for potential confounding factors so that the more degraded the peripheral hearing was, the smaller the hippocampal volume was. This association was consistent through the auditory frequency range. The volume of the entorhinal cortex, right Heschl’s gyrus and total gray matter did not correlate with hearing level at any frequency. The volume of the left Heschl’s gyrus showed a significant relationship with the hearing levels for some auditory frequencies. The current results suggested that the presence of hearing loss after middle age could be a modifier of hippocampal atrophy.

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The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of MRI abnormalities which were suspected as sinusitis in community-dwelling middle-aged and elderly Japanese and to identify risk factors for the MRI abnormality. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from the National Institute for Longevity Sciences, Longitudinal Study of Aging (NILS-LSA) were used for the analysis. Among the 2330 subjects in the NILS-LSA, 1933 participants were categorized as having no MRI abnormality or MRI abnormality using the Lund-Mackay (LM) score. The mean LM score of the participants was 0.88±1.92, and 144 (7.4%) participants had MRI abnormalities which were suspected as sinusitis when it was classified as an LM score greater than or equal to 4. The prevalence of MRI abnormality was significantly higher in participants of older age and the male sex, in participants with obesity, hypertension, bronchial asthma, chronic bronchitis, gout, or hyperuricemia and in ex- or current smokers. A multivariate logistic regression revealed that older age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.17), obesity (OR = 1.54), a smoking habit (OR = 1.71), history of asthma (OR = 3.77), and chronic bronchitis (OR = 2.66) were significant risk factors for MRI abnormality.

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