Objective Alexithymia is considered to be a personality trait with a tendency to express psychological distress in somatic rather than emotional form and, therefore, may play a vital role in somatization. Although, such a propensity can be found in patients suffering from tinnitus, the relationship between alexithymic characteristics and the subjective experience of tinnitus severity remains ye...

In an evolving clinical experience since 1979, the medical significance of the symptom of tinnitus has been identified as a "soft" sign of neurodegeneration (ND) in the central nervous system (CNS) in a particular subset of tinnitus patients diagnosed with a predominantly central-type, severe, disabling, subjective idiopathic tinnitus. To highlight this experience, a retrospective review and an...

BACKGROUND Tinnitus affects about 10-15% of the general population and risks for developing tinnitus are rising through increased exposure to leisure noise through listening to personal music players at high volume. The disorder has a considerable heterogeneity and so no single mechanism is likely to explain the presence of tinnitus in all those affected. As such there is no standardized manage...

Purpose: To investigate the effects of subjective tinnitus on cognitive functions. Methods: There were 15 patients (10 bilateral, 5 unilateral) with tinnitus who were non-psychiatric in the study group. There were 14 controls (28 ears of them) that were healthy, non-psychiatric and did not have tinnitus. We used questionnaire form; Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD); The SF-36 Health S...

BACKGROUND To determine the correlation between plasma levels of melatonin, vitamin C and vitamin B12 and the presence of tinnitus among elderly subjects with unexplained subjective tinnitus. METHOD Prospective involving apparently healthy elderly with subjective tinnitus and those without. Plasma levels of melatonin, vitamin C and vitamin B12 were determined using high performance liquid chr...

The concept of acceptance has recently received growing attention within tinnitus research due to the fact that tinnitus acceptance is one of the major targets of psychotherapeutic treatments. Accordingly, acceptance-based treatments will most likely be increasingly offered to tinnitus patients and assessments of acceptance-related behaviours will thus be needed. The current study investigated ...

INTRODUCTION Tinnitus is a multifactorial condition and its prevalence has increased on the past decades. The worldwide progressive increase of the use of cell phones has exposed the peripheral auditory pathways to a higher dose of electromagnetic radiofrequency radiation (EMRFR). Some tinnitus patients report that the abusive use of mobiles, especially when repeated in the same ear, might wors...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), a validated patient-based outcomes measure, may improve our ability to quantify impact and assess therapy for patients with tinnitus. DESIGN Nonrandomized, prospective analysis of 32 patients undergoing tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT). Assessment tools included comprehensive audiology, a subjective self-assessment survey ...

Subjective tinnitus is commonly experienced, especially by those with hearing loss. It is generally agreed that neural plasticity underlies the pathophysiology of subjective tinnitus. Studies from audiology/hearing research and cognitive neuroscience/neuropsychology are reviewed to illuminate current understanding of the pathophysiology of tinnitus. Research has revealed hyperactivity (increase...

INTRODUCTION A fundamental question in phantom perception is determining whether the brain creates a network that represents the sound intensity of the auditory phantom as measured by tinnitus matching (in dB), or whether the phantom perception is actually only a representation of the subjectively perceived loudness. METHODS In tinnitus patients, tinnitus loudness was tested in two ways, by a...