Age-related hearing loss frequently precedes or coexists with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. The role specific neuropathologies play in this association, as either a cause or a consequence, is unclear. We therefore aimed to investigate whether specific dementia related neuropathologies were associated with hearing impairment in later life. We analysed data on ante-mortem hearing impairment with post-mortem neuropathological data for 442 participants from the Brains for Dementia Research Cohort. Binary logistic regression models were used to estimate the association of hearing impairment with the presence of each dementia-related neuropathology overall, and with specific staged changes. All analyses adjusted for age and sex, and several sensitivity analyses were conducted to test the robustness of findings. Presence and density of neuritic plaques were associated with higher odds of hearing impairment ante-mortem (OR = 3.65, 95% CI 1.78–7.46 for frequent density of plaques). Presence of any LB disease was likewise associated with hearing impairment (OR = 2.10, 95% CI 1.27–3.48), but this did not increase with higher cortical pathology (OR = 1.53, 95% CI 0.75–3.11). Nonspecific amyloid deposition, neurofibrillary tangle staging, overall AD neuropathology level, and cerebrovascular disease were not clearly associated with increased risks of hearing impairment. Our results provide some support for an association between dementia-related neuropathology and hearing loss and suggest that hearing loss may be associated with a high neuritic plaque burden and more common in Lewy body disease.

中文翻译：

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年龄相关的听力损失和痴呆相关的神经病理学：对英国痴呆研究队列大脑的分析

与年龄相关的听力损失经常先于轻度认知障碍和痴呆发生或同时发生。特定的神经病理学在这种关联中所起的作用（无论是原因还是结果）尚不清楚。因此，我们的目的是调查特定的痴呆相关神经病理学是否与晚年听力障碍有关。我们分析了来自大脑痴呆症研究队列的 442 名参与者的生前听力障碍数据和死后神经病理学数据。二元逻辑回归模型用于估计听力障碍与每种痴呆相关神经病理学总体存在以及特定阶段变化的关联。所有分析均根据年龄和性别进行调整，并进行了多项敏感性分析以测试研究结果的稳健性。神经炎斑块的存在和密度与生前听力障碍的较高几率相关（OR = 3.65，斑块频繁密度的 95% CI 1.78–7.46）。任何 LB 疾病的存在同样与听力障碍相关（OR = 2.10，95% CI 1.27–3.48），但这种情况并不会随着皮质病理的升高而增加（OR = 1.53，95% CI 0.75–3.11）。非特异性淀粉样蛋白沉积、神经原纤维缠结分期、总体 AD 神经病理学水平和脑血管疾病与听力障碍风险增加没有明显相关性。我们的研究结果为痴呆相关神经病理学与听力损失之间的关联提供了一些支持，并表明听力损失可能与高神经炎斑块负担有关，并且在路易体病中更常见。