Turns out, our parents were right: listening to loud music CAN ruin our hearing. But how
much exactly? And how does it all work?
Hey guys, Tara here for Dnews - and I’m sure we all heard these little nuggets of
wisdom from our parents growing up. Don’t sit too close to the TV, you’ll go blind.
Don’t listen to loud music, you’ll go deaf. And while the first one might be bunk,
it turns out - loud music actually CAN ruin your hearing. Who knew our parents could be
right?
According to a new study published this week in Frontiers in Neuroanatomy, listening to
loud music can cause physical changes to our auditory nerves, that lead to hearing loss
later in life - and difficulty understanding speech.
Now typically, when a person starts to experience hearing loss, one of the first things to go
is their ability to understand speech - particularly in noisy situations. So this study specifically
looked at the cellular mechanisms associated with hearing loss and tinnitus - which is
a ringing of the ears - triggered by exposure to loud sounds.
Previous research has shown that repeated exposure to loud sounds can cause our myelin
- which is the material that coats all of our nerves, including our auditory nerves
- to wear down, and become thinner. Now typically, when you hear a sound, that sound gets transmitted
to your brain, through a series of electrical signals that are jumping from one myelin domain
to another. And that gap between domains, is called a Node of Ranvier.
When you’re exposed to loud sound, though, the thinning of your myelin causes those nodes
to widen - which also forces your auditory channels to redistribute their resources,
in response to that change. So in a nutshell, it takes longer for sounds to reach your brain.
Now even though we’ve known this, it’s still been kind of a mystery up until now,
as to what actually causes the hearing loss. Is it the thinning of that myelin, or the
redistribution of those auditory channels?
Well, thanks to the new data modeling techniques employed in this study, we now know that the
majority of hearing loss is directly caused by the thinning of your myelin. And knowing
this, brings us one step closer to being able to target and repair the CAUSE of hearing
loss, instead of just treating the symptoms.
It also probably wouldn’t hurt to turn the music down a little. Just a friendly suggestion.
I’m sure some of you out there are seasoned concert-goers, so what do you guys think?
Have you noticed your hearing getting worse over the years? Let us know your thoughts
in the comments below - and as always, thank you guys for watching!