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Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 19|pp 19493—19519

Accelerated age-related decline in hippocampal neurogenesis in mice with noise-induced hearing loss is associated with hippocampal microglial degeneration

Hong Zhuang1, Jing Yang2, Zhihui Huang2, Haiqing Liu2, Xiaobo Li2, Hongyu Zhang2, Jiadong Wang3, Shen Yu3, Kefei Liu4, Rui Liu3, Mingze Bi3, Jian Wang5, Richard J. Salvi6, Bohua Hu6, Gaojun Teng7, Lijie Liu1
  • 1Department of Physiology, Medical College, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China
  • 2Institute of Life Sciences, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
  • 3Medical College, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China
  • 4Kangda College of Nanjing Medical University, Lianyungang 222000, China
  • 5School of Human Communication Disorder, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2, Canada
  • 6Center for Hearing and Deafness, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA
  • 7Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging and Functional Imaging, Department of Radiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China
Received: April 3, 2020Accepted: July 23, 2020Published: October 11, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103898

Copyright: © 2020 Zhuang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Large-scale epidemiological surveys suggest that hearing loss (HL) is a significant risk factor for dementia. We previously showed that noise-induced HL (NIHL) impairs hippocampal cognitive function and decreases hippocampal neurogenesis and neuronal complexity, suggesting a causal role of HL in dementia. To further investigate the influence of acquired peripheral HL on hippocampal neurogenesis with the aging process as well as the underlying mechanism, we produced NIHL in male CBA/J mice and assessed hippocampal neurogenesis and microglial morphology in the auditory brain and hippocampus at 4 days post-noise exposure (DPN) or 1, 3, 6, or 12 months post-noise exposure (MPN) by immunofluorescence labeling. We found that the age-related decline in hippocampal neurogenesis was accelerated in mice with NIHL. Furthermore, in mice with NIHL, prolonged microglial activation occurred from 1 MPN to 12 MPN across multiple auditory nuclei, while aggravated microglial deterioration occurred in the hippocampus and correlated with the age-related decline in hippocampal neurogenesis. These results suggest that acquired peripheral HL accelerates the age-related decline in hippocampal neurogenesis and that hippocampal microglial degeneration may contribute to the development of neurodegeneration following acquired peripheral HL.