Understanding how this brain system functions makes it just one more reason to get your hearing checked and, if needed, treated.
By Rohima Badri, Ph.D.
If there is a place that was more crowded and noisier than New York City’s Times Square, it would be a suburban car dealership.
Each visit to the dealership near where I live in New Jersey was a challenge. I struggled to have important conversations about features and financing with the salesman amid the loud chatter and background music.
Anatomical location of brain regions of the cingulo-opercular network. Credit: Adriana L. Ruiz-Rizzo/Figshare/CC BY 4.0
Like anyone struggling to hear in such a demanding environment, I found myself leaning forward, intensely focused, and directing all my mental energy to pick out the salesman's words, almost drowning in the sea of noise.
In essence, I was significantly increasing my listening effort, defined as “a deliberate allocation of mental resources to overcome obstacles”—in this particular case, the pervasive background noise.
When listening demands effort, our brain engages special mechanisms not typically used during effortless listening. In these situations, an elite team known as the cingulo-opercular network springs into action.
This network comprises several brain areas, including the anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortices, and thalamus.
Studies using neuroimaging that were published in the Journal of Neuroscience and NeuroImage reveal that as word recognition gets harder, this network becomes more active, which then helps improve performance in difficult speech recognition.
In a nutshell, when listening becomes challenging, we increase our listening effort, which in turn activates the cingulo-opercular network, thereby enhancing listening accuracy.
Understanding speech in the presence of background noise, which is a challenge even for people with typical hearing, is especially challenging for people with hearing loss. However, in this case, aren’t these individuals simply increasing their listening effort, activating the elite cingulo-opercular network, and improving their listening accuracy?
This is exactly what listeners with hearing loss do. Neuroimaging studies in typical hearing individuals show that this network is used as a backup or secondary process, engaged minimally only when there's an increase in listening demand, and is usually in a resting state when listening to clear speech or in less challenging situations.
But brain imaging studies in individuals with age-related hearing loss show the network is active even during resting fMRI, according to a review study in Acta Oto-Laryngologica. This implies that they engage in effortful listening for both easy and difficult situations, since understanding speech in both quiet and noisy environments is challenging for them.
Three Issues to Consider
So what’s the problem?
For one, effortful listening is mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting. I was overwhelmed with extreme fatigue after just a few minutes of intently listening to the car salesman. The cognitive load is high, and saturation is quicker, making this mechanism unsustainable for longer listening periods.
Secondly, and most importantly, the cingulo-opercular network is primarily responsible for non-auditory cognitive functions like attention and short-term memory. It only pitches in to boost listening accuracy in adverse situations.
According to the review study, when this underlying process for effortful listening begins to compensate for easy listening, it depletes already limited cognitive resources allocated for important non-auditory cognitive functions and for listening in adverse situations.
Thirdly, prolonged and frequent effortful listening can cause atrophy or neural degeneration within this network, also according to the review study. This, in turn, can lead to greater memory impairment. In essence, the overuse of this network for auditory function can damage other crucial non-auditory cognitive functions.
Therefore, effortful listening is not a healthy form of listening!
If you think you are straining to hear people, complaining of fatigue, or struggling to perform basic tasks while listening, you are doing effortful listening.
How We Can Help the Brain
One of the easiest and most efficient ways to relieve the cingulo-opercular network from this overdrive and free it up for other important functions is by using hearing aids. Hearing aids not only increase clarity by increasing audibility, but also their advanced technology can improve the signal-to-noise ratio and increase the ease of listening in both quiet and challenging situations.
Studies show that hearing aids and cochlear implants greatly improve the sound signals sent to the brain. Their advanced technology helps clarify speech, especially in noisy places, which is a huge relief for the brain's cognitive networks and reduces the brain's need to work overtime.
So now you know that hearing aids do more than just improve your hearing and social life. They also free up vital brain resources normally dedicated to memory, attention, and other cognitive functions. Please consider this one more powerful reason to finally schedule that hearing test and hearing aid evaluation.
New Jersey resident Rohima Badri, Ph.D., is an adviser to HHF’s Keep Listening prevention campaign.
Two coauthors on the Journal of Neuroscience and NeuroImage papers, Kenneth Vaden, Ph.D., and Mark Eckert, Ph.D., are Emerging Research Grants scientists; Vaden’s grant was generously funded by Royal Arch Research Assistance. Additional coauthor Judy Dubno, Ph.D., is the secretary of Hearing Health Foundation’s Board of Directors.
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