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Hearing and Age-Related Changes in the Gray Mouse Lemur

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ABSTRACT

In order to examine auditory thresholds and hearing sensitivity during aging in the gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus), suggested to represent a model for early primate evolution and Alzheimer research, we applied brainstem-evoked response audiometry (BERA), traditionally used for screening hearing sensitivity in human babies. To assess the effect of age, we determined auditory thresholds in two age groups of adult mouse lemurs (young adults, 1–5 years; old adults, ≥7 years) using clicks and tone pips. Auditory thresholds indicated frequency sensitivity from 800 Hz to almost 50 kHz, covering the species tonal communication range with fundamentals from about 8 to 40 kHz. The frequency of best hearing at 7.9 kHz was slightly lower than that and coincided with the dominant frequencies of communication signals of a predator. Aging shifted auditory thresholds in the range between 2 and 50.4 kHz significantly by 12–27 dB. This mild presbyacusis, expressed in a drop of amplitudes of BERA signals, but not discernible in latencies of responses, suggests a metabolic age-related decrease potentially combined with an accompanying degeneration of the cochlear nerve. Our findings on hearing range of this species support the hypothesis that predation was a driving factor for the evolution of hearing in small ancestral primates. Likewise, results provide the empirical basis for future approaches trying to differentiate peripheral from central factors when studying Alzheimer’s disease-like pathologies in the aging brain.

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Abbreviations

AD:

Alzheimer’s disease

ARHL:

age-related hearing loss

ABR:

auditory brainstem response

BERA:

brainstem-evoked response audiometry

EP:

endocochlear potential

SPL:

sound pressure level

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank F. Sherwood-Brock for checking the English in the manuscript, H.-J. Sauer, L. Müller, and K. Nitschke for animal care and S. von den Berg and K.-H. Esser for technical support. This study was financially supported by a Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg scholarship (CS) and in part by the DFG Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all (PH and AK) and the European Community’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 278486 acronym “DEVELAGE” (EZ).

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The authors declare no actual or potential conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Zoology, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Bünteweg 17, 30559, Hannover, Germany

    Christian Schopf & Elke Zimmermann

  2. Center for Systems Neuroscience, Hannover, Germany

    Christian Schopf, Elke Zimmermann, Sabine B. R. Kästner & Andrej Kral

  3. Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Bünteweg 9, 30559, Hannover, Germany

    Julia Tünsmeyer & Sabine B. R. Kästner

  4. Institute of Audioneurotechnology & Department of Experimental Otology, ENT Clinics, Medical University Hannover, Feodor-Lynen-Straße 35, 30625, Hannover, Germany

    Peter Hubka & Andrej Kral

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  1. Christian Schopf
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  2. Elke Zimmermann
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  3. Julia Tünsmeyer
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Correspondence to Elke Zimmermann.

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Christian Schopf, Elke Zimmermann, and Andrej Kral are contributed equally to the study.

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Schopf, C., Zimmermann, E., Tünsmeyer, J. et al. Hearing and Age-Related Changes in the Gray Mouse Lemur. JARO 15, 993–1005 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-014-0478-4

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