Ringing Ears: the Neuroscience of Tinnitus

Overview

Journal J Neurosci

Specialty Neurology

Date 2010 Nov 12

PMID 21068300

Citations 254

Authors

Larry E Roberts

Jos J Eggermont

Donald M Caspary

Susan E Shore

Jennifer R Melcher

James A Kaltenbach

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Tinnitus is a phantom sound (ringing of the ears) that affects quality of life for millions around the world and is associated in most cases with hearing impairment. This symposium will consider evidence that deafferentation of tonotopically organized central auditory structures leads to increased neuron spontaneous firing rates and neural synchrony in the hearing loss region. This region covers the frequency spectrum of tinnitus sounds, which are optimally suppressed following exposure to band-limited noise covering the same frequencies. Cross-modal compensations in subcortical structures may contribute to tinnitus and its modulation by jaw-clenching and eye movements. Yet many older individuals with impaired hearing do not have tinnitus, possibly because age-related changes in inhibitory circuits are better preserved. A brain network involving limbic and other nonauditory regions is active in tinnitus and may be driven when spectrotemporal information conveyed by the damaged ear does not match that predicted by central auditory processing.

Citing Articles

A U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and tinnitus incidence: analysis of 13,871 participants from NHANES.

Li Y, Peng L, Lan Y, Hou T, Pan X, Yin S Braz J Med Biol Res. 2025; 58:e14109.

PMID: 40053035 PMC: 11884771. DOI: 10.1590/1414-431X2025e14109.

Aberrant auditory prediction patterns robustly characterize tinnitus.

Reisinger L, Demarchi G, Obleser J, Sedley W, Partyka M, Schubert J Elife. 2025; 13.

PMID: 39854620 PMC: 11684784. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.99757.

The missing pieces: an investigation into the parallels between Charles Bonnet, phantom limb and tinnitus syndromes.

Baffour-Awuah K, Bridge H, Engward H, MacKinnon R, Ip I, Jolly J Ther Adv Ophthalmol. 2024; 16:25158414241302065.

PMID: 39649951 PMC: 11624543. DOI: 10.1177/25158414241302065.

Effect of oral caroverine in the treatment of tinnitus: A quasi-experimental study.

Dash A, Panda A, Prusty N, Satpathy M, Bisoyi S, Barik P J Family Med Prim Care. 2024; 13(10):4648-4651.

PMID: 39629381 PMC: 11610820. DOI: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_617_24.

A Comparative Analysis of the Efficacy of Ginkgo Biloba and Caroverine in the Management of Idiopathic Tinnitus.

Basista H, Saxena R, Pathak V, Awasthi S Indian J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2024; 76(5):4386-4392.

PMID: 39376418 PMC: 11456053. DOI: 10.1007/s12070-024-04868-5.

References

Norena A, Chery-Croze S . Enriched acoustic environment rescales auditory sensitivity. Neuroreport. 2007; 18(12):1251-5. DOI: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e3282202c35. View

Takahashi Y, Kori H, Masuda N . Self-organization of feed-forward structure and entrainment in excitatory neural networks with spike-timing-dependent plasticity. Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2009; 79(5 Pt 1):051904. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.79.051904. View

Rachel J, Kaltenbach J, Janisse J . Increases in spontaneous neural activity in the hamster dorsal cochlear nucleus following cisplatin treatment: a possible basis for cisplatin-induced tinnitus. Hear Res. 2002; 164(1-2):206-14. DOI: 10.1016/s0378-5955(02)00287-3. View

Terry A, Jones D, Davis B, Slater R . Parametric studies of tinnitus masking and residual inhibition. Br J Audiol. 1983; 17(4):245-56. DOI: 10.3109/03005368309081485. View

Levine R . Typewriter tinnitus: a carbamazepine-responsive syndrome related to auditory nerve vascular compression. ORL J Otorhinolaryngol Relat Spec. 2006; 68(1):43-6. DOI: 10.1159/000090490. View

Llinas R, Urbano F, Leznik E, Ramirez R, van Marle H . Rhythmic and dysrhythmic thalamocortical dynamics: GABA systems and the edge effect. Trends Neurosci. 2005; 28(6):325-33. DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2005.04.006. View

Eggermont J . Sound-induced synchronization of neural activity between and within three auditory cortical areas. J Neurophysiol. 2000; 83(5):2708-22. DOI: 10.1152/jn.2000.83.5.2708. View

Mirz F, Gjedde A, Ishizu K, Pedersen C . Cortical networks subserving the perception of tinnitus--a PET study. Acta Otolaryngol Suppl. 2000; 543:241-3. DOI: 10.1080/000164800454503. View

Dehmel S, Cui Y, Shore S . Cross-modal interactions of auditory and somatic inputs in the brainstem and midbrain and their imbalance in tinnitus and deafness. Am J Audiol. 2008; 17(2):S193-209. PMC: 2760229. DOI: 10.1044/1059-0889(2008/07-0045). View

10.

Dean I, Harper N, McAlpine D . Neural population coding of sound level adapts to stimulus statistics. Nat Neurosci. 2005; 8(12):1684-9. DOI: 10.1038/nn1541. View

11.

Hughes L, Turner J, Parrish J, Caspary D . Processing of broadband stimuli across A1 layers in young and aged rats. Hear Res. 2009; 264(1-2):79-85. PMC: 2868092. DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2009.09.005. View

12.

Wienbruch C, Paul I, Weisz N, Elbert T, Roberts L . Frequency organization of the 40-Hz auditory steady-state response in normal hearing and in tinnitus. Neuroimage. 2006; 33(1):180-94. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.06.023. View

13.

Kanold P, Young E . Proprioceptive information from the pinna provides somatosensory input to cat dorsal cochlear nucleus. J Neurosci. 2001; 21(19):7848-58. PMC: 6762891. View

14.

Konig O, Schaette R, Kempter R, Gross M . Course of hearing loss and occurrence of tinnitus. Hear Res. 2006; 221(1-2):59-64. DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2006.07.007. View

15.

Norena A, Micheyl C, Chery-Croze S, Collet L . Psychoacoustic characterization of the tinnitus spectrum: implications for the underlying mechanisms of tinnitus. Audiol Neurootol. 2002; 7(6):358-69. DOI: 10.1159/000066156. View

16.

Turner J, Hughes L, Caspary D . Affects of aging on receptive fields in rat primary auditory cortex layer V neurons. J Neurophysiol. 2005; 94(4):2738-47. DOI: 10.1152/jn.00362.2005. View

17.

Tzounopoulos T, Rubio M, Keen J, Trussell L . Coactivation of pre- and postsynaptic signaling mechanisms determines cell-specific spike-timing-dependent plasticity. Neuron. 2007; 54(2):291-301. PMC: 2151977. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2007.03.026. View

18.

Lew H, Jerger J, Guillory S, Henry J . Auditory dysfunction in traumatic brain injury. J Rehabil Res Dev. 2007; 44(7):921-8. DOI: 10.1682/jrrd.2007.09.0140. View

19.

Shore S, Zhou J, Koehler S . Neural mechanisms underlying somatic tinnitus. Prog Brain Res. 2007; 166:107-23. PMC: 2566901. DOI: 10.1016/S0079-6123(07)66010-5. View

20.

Roberts L, Moffat G, Baumann M, Ward L, Bosnyak D . Residual inhibition functions overlap tinnitus spectra and the region of auditory threshold shift. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol. 2008; 9(4):417-35. PMC: 2580805. DOI: 10.1007/s10162-008-0136-9. View