Low-frequency hearing thresholds improve as high-frequency hearing sensitivity deteriorates between young adulthood and middle age in normally hearing people

Hearing sensitivity changes throughout a person’s lifetime. This work
aimed to describe changes in pure-tone audiometric (PTA) thresholds that
occur in the transition from young adulthood to middle age in 121 adults
with normal or nearly normal hearing. Results showed that older people had
worse high-frequency (4000-8000 Hz) thresholds but unexpectedly better
low-frequency (125-500 Hz) thresholds than younger individuals, suggesting
that hearing sensitivity in the low-frequency range may improve with age.
The improvement of low-frequency thresholds may be part of a central
compensation for age-related deterioration of high-frequency hearing
sensitivity. Further studies of age-related changes in low-frequency
hearing sensitivity are needed to confirm our findings.