The Noisy Life of the Musician: Implications for Healthy Brain Aging

项目总结 演奏乐器是儿童和成人的一项很受欢迎的活动，有证据表明它对健康有好处。其中之一 最具挑衅性，但最不为人所知的健康益处是在晚期保留大脑功能 年龄。然而，演奏乐器也会对健康造成重大危害，包括 从常规暴露在嘈杂(嘈杂)的环境中。除了在嘈杂环境中造成听力损失的风险外， 噪声暴露是与年龄相关的功能衰退的一个重要危险因素。虽然收益和风险都是 关于音乐训练的问题已经被广泛研究，但很少有人注意到它们之间的相互作用。要了解 对于调节音乐训练对人脑影响的机制，我们必须开发出更完整的 说明可能抵消音乐训练益处的风险因素及其程度 面对这些风险，好处依然存在。为了更充分地利用音乐的治疗益处，我们还需要 更好地解释在音乐家停止演奏乐器后，这种好处是否会持续下去。这些知识 间隙激发了关于听觉大脑老化的拟议工作，在这项工作中，终身音乐家将与对照组进行比较 以及那些从小就没有演奏过乐器的前音乐家。拟议的工作是有根据的 在我们发表的关于听觉大脑老化的研究中，以及我们关于音乐相互作用的已发表研究和试点研究中 训练和噪声暴露对年轻人听觉大脑的影响。拟议工作的目的是(1)描述 目前和终身接触音乐和非音乐活动的噪音，(2)调查两者之间的关系 终生音乐训练、终生噪音暴露和听觉-大脑老化，以及(3)调查两者之间的关系 童年音乐训练和晚年听觉脑功能之间的关系。对于所有这三个目标，年轻人(18- 24岁)将与中年成年人(45-60岁)进行比较。我们假设音乐作为声学的一种形式 丰富和训练，可以减轻噪音伤害的影响和年龄相关的下降，通过加强 最容易受到危害的神经系统。我们的方法是创新的， 全面的，并得到了我们之前的工作的证实。我们将使用一种新颖的个人声音组合 剂量学和结构化访谈，以确定噪音伤害的风险。噪声暴露数据将被合并 用经过验证的方法研究跨多个神经回路的听觉大脑老化，使用统计设计 解释了选择偏差和混杂变量，如社会经济地位和耳蜗功能。多数 人类听觉老化的研究主要集中在老年人(60岁以上)，较少关注早期阶段的研究 衰老时防止机能衰退的机会较大。这促使我们决定 关注早期老龄化。这项工作的结果可能会为促进大脑健康提供新的方法 关于利用音乐训练的治疗特性来最大限度地利用音乐训练的老化和临床建议 受益并将危险降至最低。我们的多学科研究团队在听觉方面有互补的专业知识 神经科学(Skoe)、噪声暴露(Tuft)、生物统计学(Harel)和衰老(Kuchel)。

PROJECT SUMMARY Playing a musical instrument is a popular childhood and adult activity with documented health benefits. One of the most provocative, but least understood, proposed health benefits is preserved brain function in advanced age. Playing a musical instrument, however, can also pose significant health hazards, including those that come from routine exposure to noisy (loud) environments. Beyond the risks of hearing loss from loud environments, noise exposure is a significant risk factor for age-related functional declines. While both the benefits and risks of musical training have been widely studied, little attention has been given to their interplay. To understand the mechanisms that mediate the effects of musical training on the human brain, we must develop a more complete accounting of the risk factors that could counteract the benefits of musical training and the degree to which benefits persist in the face of these risks. To more fully harness the therapeutic benefits of music, we also need a better account of whether the benefits persist after a musician stops playing their instrument. These knowledge gaps motivate the proposed work on auditory brain aging, in which lifelong musicians will be compared to controls and to ex-musicians who have not played a musical instrument since childhood. The proposed work is grounded in our published studies of auditory brain aging, and our published and pilot studies on the interplay of musical training and noise exposure on the young adult auditory brain. The proposed work aims (1) to characterize current and lifetime noise exposure from music and non-music activities, (2) to investigate relations among lifelong musical training, lifetime noise exposure, and auditory-brain aging, and (3) to investigate relations between childhood musical training and later-life auditory-brain function. For all three aims, young adults (18- 24 years) will be compared to middle-aged adults (45-60 years). We hypothesize that music, as a form of acoustic enrichment and training, may mitigate the impact of noise injuries and age-related decline by strengthening the neural systems most vulnerable to being compromised. Our methodological approach is innovative, comprehensive, and corroborated by our prior work. We will use a novel combination of personal sound dosimetry and structured interviews to characterize the risk of noise injury. Noise exposure data will be combined with validated methods to study auditory brain aging across multiple neural circuits, using a statistical design that accounts for selection bias and confounding variables such as socioeconomic status and cochlear function. Most studies of human auditory aging focus on older adults (60+ years), with less attention on studying early-stage aging when opportunities for the prevention of functional decline are greater. This motivates our decision to focus on early-stage aging. The outcomes of this work may suggest new approaches to promote healthy brain aging and clinical recommendations about harnessing the therapeutic properties of music training to maximize benefits and minimize hazards. Our multidisciplinary study team has complementary expertise in auditory neuroscience (Skoe), noise exposure (Tufts), biostatistics (Harel), and aging (Kuchel).