Tinnitus describes the perception of any sound in the ear in the absence of an external stimulus and presents a malfunction in the processing of auditory signals. A hearing impairment, often noiseinduced or related to aging, is commonly associated with tinnitus. Clinically, tinnitus is subdivided into subjective and objective. Objective tinnitus describes the minority of cases in which an exter...

The generation of tinnitus is a topic of much scientific enquiry. This chapter reviews possible mechanisms of tinnitus, whilst noting that the heterogeneity observed within the human population with distressing tinnitus means that there may be many different mechanisms by which tinnitus can occur. Indeed, multiple mechanisms may be at work within one individual. The role of the cochlea in tinni...

BACKGROUND Pharmacological treatment of tinnitus cannot be considered well established. Thus, reducing tinnitus severity through behavioral therapy is emerging as a key goal. METHODS A total of 286 patients suffering from persistent and stable tinnitus for four months or longer participated in this controlled clinical multicenter study. The study investigated the efficacy and safety of a stan...

At present, there is no objective method for diagnosing subjective sensorineural tinnitus. Recently, the acoustic change complex (ACC) has been used to evaluate neural detection of sounds. Thus, the present study aimed to examine whether the ACC can reflect cortical detection and discrimination of sounds matched with tinnitus frequencies. We hypothesized that the ACC to change stimuli matched w...

Background Tinnitus is a frequently reported symptom in otolaryngologic practice. Nevertheless, uniform definition lacking the international literature, so that prevalence data are widely scattered. The aim of this study was to present tinnitus large German cohort.

Not long ago, tinnitus and hyperacusis were considered intractable symptoms and the lack of interest and shortage of research in diseases with these symptoms would have made publishing a special issue on tinnitus and hyperacusis nearly impossible. During the past two decades, there has been an explosion of research on tinnitus and incremental growth on hyperacusis, a condition associated with h...

Sound therapy, or use of any sound for the purpose of tinnitus management, is widely accepted as a management tool for reduction of tinnitus complaints. The rationale for the use of sound is minimizing the patient’s perception of tinnitus by effectively reducing the perception of tinnitus relative to environmental sounds (Del Bo & Ambrosetti, 2007; Folmer & Carroll, 2006). Despite this common r...

BACKGROUND Many people with tinnitus also suffer from hyperacusis. Both clinical and basic scientific data indicate an overlap in pathophysiologic mechanisms. In order to further elucidate the interplay between tinnitus and hyperacusis we compared clinical and demographic characteristics of tinnitus patients with and without hyperacusis by analyzing a large sample from an international tinnitus...

BACKGROUND Tinnitus refers to auditory phantom sensation. It is estimated that for 2% of the population this auditory phantom percept severely affects the quality of life, due to tinnitus related distress. Although the overall distress levels do not differ between sexes in tinnitus, females are more influenced by distress than males. Typically, pain, sleep, and depression are perceived as signi...