Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have found that as people age, their hearing worsens due to the loss of the ability to turn off certain neurons. Research results published At The Journal of Neuroscience.
The team did an experiment with mice. The researchers monitored 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 rats had to lick the drops of water with a sound signal (this was previously taught to the rats). Later, this exercise was repeated with “white noise” playing in the background.
Apparently, aged mice had a reduced ability to “turn off” certain brain cells in noisy environments. This makes it difficult for the brain to focus on spoken words and filter out surrounding noise. In conclusion: in the absence of sound background, old mice drank as often as younger mice, but licking frequency was reduced in older rodents along with white noise.