Transient reduction of tinnitus intensity is marked by concomitant reductions of delta band power

Abstract

Background: Tinnitus is an auditory phantom phenomenon characterized by the sensation of sounds without objectively identifiable sound sources. To date, its causes are not well understood. Previous research found altered patterns of spontaneous brain activity in chronic tinnitus sufferers compared to healthy controls, yet it is unknown whether these abnormal oscillatory patterns are causally related to the tinnitus sensation. Partial support for this notion comes from a neurofeedback approach developed by our group, in which significant reductions in tinnitus loudness could be achieved in patients who successfully normalized their patterns of spontaneous brain activity. The current work attempts to complement these studies by scrutinizing how modulations of tinnitus intensity alter ongoing oscillatory activity.

The mechanisms of tinnitus: Perspectives from human functional neuroimaging

“…Hoke et al, 1989;Jacobson et al, 1991;Attias et al, 1993), and occasionally even the same group fails to replicate their own earlier findings (e.g. Weisz et al, 2007a;Kahlbrock and Weisz, 2008). Perhaps one reason for this is that TI is a complex disorder with a diverse aetiology and symptoms.…”

“…The effect of residual inhibition on gamma-band oscillations has been investigated using MEG (Kahlbrock and Weisz, 2008). Spontaneous brain activity in ten patients with TI was contrasted between periods of residual inhibition and periods of habitual TI following an ineffective (control) masker.…”

Listening to tailor-made notched music reduces tinnitus loudness and tinnitus-related auditory cortex activity

“…Crucially, such fused cortical areas would be characterized by less lateral inhibitory networks (24) and may generate tinnitus by means of synchronized spontaneous neural activity (25). Such pathological spontaneous activity synchronization evidently interacts with other brain regions (26), and has been shown to be closely related to tinnitus loudness (27,28) and tinnitus duration (29). Despite the existence of diseases caused by maladaptive cortical reorganization, the consequences of reorganization can be beneficial (7,30).…”

Unlearning tinnitus-related cerebral synchrony with acoustic coordinated reset stimulation: theoretical concept and modelling

“…Pathologically enhanced delta activity emerges in cortical regions deprived of afferent input (Steriade 2006). There is a tight relationship between tinnitus loudness, on the one hand, and delta power in temporal regions Kahlbrock and Weisz 2008) or theta power extradurally recorded from the secondary auditory cortex (De Ridder et al 2011). While the cortical reorganization evolves on a slow time scale within several days or weeks (Robertson and Irvine 1989), the tinnitus percept and the related neuronal synchronization follow a noise trauma typically immediately (Norena and Eggermont 2003;Ortmann et al 2011).…”

“…While the cortical reorganization evolves on a slow time scale within several days or weeks (Robertson and Irvine 1989), the tinnitus percept and the related neuronal synchronization follow a noise trauma typically immediately (Norena and Eggermont 2003;Ortmann et al 2011). As pathological neuronal synchronization processes are considered to be the correlate of the tinnitus percept Kahlbrock and Weisz 2008;De Ridder et al 2011), in a first step, we here focus on the control of tinnitus-related pathological synchrony.…”