What is cognitive load? 🧠 Cognitive load relates to the amount of information that working memory can hold simultaneously. 🧠 For patients with hearing loss, there is an increased cognitive load being placed on the brain! In fact, studies have looked at functional MRIs in individuals with normal hearing and hearing loss and here’s what they found: 📌 They noticed that people with hearing loss had reduced activity in the primary auditory cortex, which makes sense. If the brain is not receiving a clear signal, the sound processing will likely be impacted at the level of the brain.😣 📌 INTERESTINGLY, they also noticed that these same individuals with hearing loss had increased activity in the prefrontal cortex — which is not an area of the brain generally used for sound processing. In other words, your brain has to work harder because other brain regions are being recruited to compensate for reduced auditory information.🤯 📌 This means the brain needs to expend more effort decoding the signal. This is one pathway through which hearing loss could directly impact cognitive decline and dementia.🧠 Stay tuned this month for more information regarding hearing and cognition! I always inform my patients that hearing isn’t just an “ear” thing… it takes the BRAIN too!🧠👂 [Peelle, J. E., Troiani, V., Grossman, M., & Wingfield, A. (2011). Hearing loss in older adults affects neural systems supporting speech comprehension. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(35), 12638-12643.]