Age-related hearing loss affects the ability to hear high frequencies and therefore leads to difficulties in understanding speech, particularly under adverse listening conditions. This decrease in hearing can be partly compensated by the recruitment of executive functions, such as working memory. The compensatory effort may, however, lead to a decrease in available neural resources compromising cognitive abilities. We here aim to investigate whether mild to moderate hearing loss impacts prefrontal functions and related executive processes and whether these are related to speech-in-noise perception abilities. Nineteen hard of hearing and nineteen age-matched normal-hearing participants performed a working memory task to drive prefrontal activity, which was gauged with functional magnetic resonance imaging. In addition, speech-in-noise understanding, cognitive flexibility and inhibition control were assessed. Our results showed no differences in frontoparietal activation patterns and working memory performance between normal-hearing and hard of hearing participants. The behavioral assessment of further executive functions, however, provided evidence of lower cognitive flexibility in hard of hearing participants. Cognitive flexibility and hearing abilities further predicted speech-in-noise perception. We conclude that neural and behavioral signatures of working memory are intact in mild to moderate hearing loss. Moreover, cognitive flexibility seems to be closely related to hearing impairment and speech-in-noise perception and should, therefore, be investigated in future studies assessing age-related hearing loss and its implications on prefrontal functions.

中文翻译：

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与年龄有关的听力损失的工作记忆的神经特征。

与年龄有关的听力损失会影响听高频的能力，因此会导致语音理解上的困难，尤其是在不利的聆听条件下。听力的下降可以部分归因于执行功能的招聘，例如工作记忆。但是，补偿工作可能会导致损害认知能力的可用神经资源减少。我们的目的是调查轻度至中度听力损失是否会影响额叶前额功能和相关的执行过程，以及这些是否与“言语中的语音”感知能力有关。19名听力困难的人和19名年龄相匹配的正常听力的参与者执行了工作记忆任务以驱动前额叶活动，并通过功能磁共振成像对其进行了评估。此外，对语音的理解 评估认知灵活性和抑制控制。我们的研究结果显示，正常听力和重度听力参与者的额前额叶激活模式和工作记忆性能无差异。然而，对进一步执行功能的行为评估为低听力参与者提供了较低的认知灵活性的证据。认知灵活性和听力能力进一步预测了言语噪声感知。我们得出结论，在轻度至中度听力损失中，工作记忆的神经和行为特征是完整的。此外，认知灵活性似乎与听力障碍和语音中的语音感知密切相关，因此，应在以后的研究中进行研究，以评估与年龄有关的听力损失及其对额叶功能的影响。