{
  "id": 15568089,
  "title": "Spatiotemporal transcriptomic dynamic across the auditory pathway from young to old age in 5xFAD Alzheimer disease mice",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/18/spatiotemporal-transcriptomic-dynamic-across-the-auditory-pathway",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-10-18T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.17.759861v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Alzheimer's disease (AD) often manifests with auditory impairments before clinical dementia sets in. To understand the molecular progression of AD from the sensory periphery to the auditory cortex, researchers conducted a study on 5xFAD and wild-type mice at various ages. The team analyzed auditory cortex, inferior colliculus, cochlear nucleus, and cochlea samples from the mice at postnatal day 50, 8 months, 11 months, and 16 months.\n\nInitially, at the youngest age, the auditory regions showed reduced activity in mitochondrial metabolism, protein synthesis, RNA processing, and proteostasis. Meanwhile, the cochlear nucleus exhibited increased metabolic and biosynthetic activity, along with diminished synaptic and adhesion processes. By 8 months of age, inflammatory pathways coalesced across all four regions, involving interferon, complement, IL6-JAK-STAT3, and various immune response mechanisms.\n\nHowever, this coordination disintegrated at 11 months. The auditory cortex and inferior colliculus continued to display inflammatory and negative synaptic alterations, whereas the cochlear nucleus and cochlea shifted in the opposite direction, including temporary positive shifts in synaptic activities. By 16 months, inflammatory interactions reunited across the regions, yet metabolic, proteostatic, and synaptic patterns remained distinct for each area. The cochlear nucleus diverged from the auditory cortex, inferior colliculus, and cochlea in several key metabolic processes.\n\nIn summary, the study reveals a complex, asynchronous response to AD pathology across the auditory pathway rather than a predictable progression. The findings suggest that early metabolic stress, intermediate central-peripheral decoupling, and late inflammatory convergence may serve as molecular markers to assess peripheral-to-central auditory gain and temporal processing as potential indicators of AD progression.",
  "summary": "Auditory dysfunction can precede clinical dementia, but the molecular progression of Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology from the sensory periphery to auditory cortex remains poorly resolved. We performed bulk RNA sequencing of auditory cortex (AC), inferior colliculus (IC), cochlear nucleus (CN), and cochlea from 5xFAD and wild-type mice at postnatal day 50 (P50), 8 months, 11 months, and 16…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}