Published in

MDPI, Life, 2(14), p. 194, 2024

DOI: 10.3390/life14020194

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Chronic Toxoplasma gondii Infection Modulates Hearing Ability across the Adult Life Span

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

While several studies have shown associations between hearing disorders and congenital toxoplasmosis, the present study investigated the impact of chronic, latent Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection on hearing loss. We used a regression analysis to explore whether latent T. gondii infection modulates changes in hearing thresholds over an age range from 20 to 70 years. We analyzed audiometric data of 162 T. gondii IgG-positive and 430 T. gondii-negative participants, collected in the Dortmund Vital Study (DVS, ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05155397), a prospective study on healthy cognitive aging. The regression analysis indicated that latent toxoplasmosis was associated with an accelerated development in hearing loss over the observed age range. Hearing loss was less frequent in IgG-positive than in IgG-negative participants up to the age of about 40 for a low (0.125–1 kHz)-frequency range. For high (2–8 kHz) frequencies, this pattern reversed for ages above 65 years. We discuss these findings on hearing function in the context of a recently proposed model, suggesting that latent toxoplasmosis can differentially affect brain functions across a lifespan.