Contributions of Hearing Loss and Traumatic Brain Injury to Blast-Induced Cortical Parvalbumin Neuron Loss and Auditory Processing Deficits

Auditory processing disorder is the most common problem affecting veterans after blast exposure, but the distinct impacts of blast-related traumatic brain injury and blast-related hearing loss are unknown. Independently, both hearing loss and blast exposure affect the entire auditory processing pathway at the molecular and physiological levels. Here, we identified distinct changes to the primary auditory cortex (AI) and temporal processing in mice following blast exposure both with and without protected hearing. Our results show that blast-exposure alone activated microglia in AI, but hearing loss was required for reductions in the density of parvalbumin-expressing interneurons. Although blast exposure impaired the temporal following response, these impairments were more severe with concurrent unilateral hearing loss, further resulting in impairments in behavioral gap detection. Taken together, these results indicate that protecting hearing during blast exposure can prevent most impairments to auditory processing but does not fully protect temporal processing.