(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have found that as people get older, their hearing deteriorates due to the loss of the ability to turn off certain neurons.
The team conducted an experiment with mice. The researchers tracked the activity of 8,078 brain cells in the auditory cortex of 12 old mice (16-24 months old) and 10 young mice (2-6 months old).
At this time, the mice had to lick the drops of water at the sound signal (this was taught to the mice in advance). Subsequently, this exercise was repeated with the background playback of “white noise”.
As it turns out, older mice have a reduced ability to “turn off” certain brain cells in noisy environments. This makes it difficult for the brain to focus on the spoken words and filter out the surrounding noise.
As a result: in the absence of sound background, old mice drank water as often as young ones, but along with white noise in older rodents, the frequency of licking became less.
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