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Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 9|pp 12587—12606

Neural presbycusis at ultra-high frequency in aged common marmosets and rhesus monkeys

Zhuoer Sun1,2,3, Zhenzhe Cheng1,2,3, Neng Gong4,5, Zhen Xu4,5, Chenxi Jin1,2,3, Hao Wu1,2,3, Yong Tao1,2,3
  • 1Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200011, P.R. China
  • 2Ear Institute, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200011, P.R. China
  • 3Shanghai Key Laboratory of Translation Medicine on Ear and Nose Disease, Shanghai 200011, P.R. China
  • 4Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, P.R. China
  • 5University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P.R. China
Received: November 6, 2020Accepted: March 5, 2021Published: April 27, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Sun 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

The aging of the population and environmental noise have contributed to high rates of presbycusis, also known as age-related hearing loss (ARHL). Because mice have a relatively short life span, murine models have not been suitable for determining the mechanism of presbycusis development and methods of diagnosis. Although the common marmoset, a non-human primate (NHP), is an ideal animal model for studying age-related diseases, its auditory spectrum has not been systematically studied. Auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) from 38 marmosets of different ages demonstrated that auditory function correlated with age. Hearing loss in geriatric common marmosets started at ultra-high frequency (>16 kHz), then extended to lower frequencies. Despite age-related deterioration of ABR threshold and amplitude in marmosets, outer hair cell (OHC) function remained stable at all ages. Spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs), which are the first auditory neurons in the auditory system, were found to degenerate distinctly in aged common marmosets, indicating that neural degeneration caused presbycusis in these animals. Similarly, age-associated ABR deterioration without loss of OHC function was observed in another NHP, rhesus monkeys. Audiometry results from these two species of NHP suggested that NHPs were ideal for studying ARHL and that neural presbycusis at high frequency may be prevalent in primates.