Shin Junyoung, Noh Shinhee, Park Jimin, Jun Sang Beom, Sung Jee Eun
Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemoon-gu, Seoul, 03760, South Korea.
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 03760, South Korea.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 22;15(1):26629. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-11363-6.
Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is associated with an increased risk of dementia, highlighting the need for early interventions to support cognitive functioning. Despite promising evidence supporting transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) for mitigating cognitive impairment, its impact on working memory (WM) in older adults with ARHL is unexplored. This study is the first attempt to investigate taVNS effects on WM in the older adults with hearing impairment (HI) and with typical hearing (TH). WM capacity was assessed using n-back tasks, varying by WM domains (verbal and visuo-spatial) and complexity levels (1-back and 2-back). Participants underwent a two-session, within-subjects, randomized crossover, single-blind sham-controlled protocol, receiving 20 min of continuous stimulation in the active session, whereas only 30 s at the start and end in the sham session. The HI group performed significantly worse than the TH group on the 2-back tasks. Within the HI group, taVNS significantly enhanced performance across all WM domains and complexity levels compared to the sham condition. These findings suggest that taVNS enhances WM in hearing-impaired older adults, underscoring its potential as a clinical intervention for addressing WM challenges associated with ARHL.
年龄相关性听力损失（ARHL）与痴呆风险增加相关，这凸显了早期干预以支持认知功能的必要性。尽管有证据支持经皮耳迷走神经刺激（taVNS）可减轻认知障碍，但它对患有ARHL的老年人工作记忆（WM）的影响尚未得到探索。本研究首次尝试调查taVNS对听力受损（HI）和听力正常（TH）的老年人WM的影响。使用n-back任务评估WM容量，该任务因WM领域（言语和视觉空间）和复杂程度（1-back和2-back）而异。参与者接受了一个两阶段、受试者内、随机交叉、单盲假对照方案，在活跃阶段接受20分钟的连续刺激，而在假刺激阶段仅在开始和结束时接受30秒刺激。HI组在2-back任务上的表现明显比TH组差。在HI组中，与假刺激条件相比，taVNS在所有WM领域和复杂程度上均显著提高了表现。这些发现表明，taVNS可增强听力受损老年人的WM，凸显了其作为解决与ARHL相关的WM挑战的临床干预措施的潜力。
