Abstract
Objective: It still remains a matter of debate whether the main responsible mechanism for tinnitus generation is reduced lateral inhibition or feed forward inhibition. On a perceptual level these different mechanisms should be reflected by the relation between the individual hearing curve and the perceived tinnitus frequency.
Method: We investigated in a large sample of 320 patients with unilateral (145 right, 175 left) tonal tinnitus the relationship between the perceived tinnitus pitch and the individual audiogram. The tinnitus frequency as determined by pitch matching was compared with an audiogram of the ear where the tinnitus was perceived.
Results: The perceived tinnitus pitch depended to a greater extent on the frequency of maximum hearing loss than on the edge frequency.
Conclusion: Results of our study confirm the relevance of absolute hearing loss for tinnitus generation as compared with the edge frequency, suggesting that tinnitus is rather a fill-in phenomenon, eg, generated by altered gain control, than the result of deficient lateral inhibition.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.