Evaluation of Possible Alterations in The Auditory Evoked and Event-Related Potentials in Patients with Tinnitus

Abstract

Objective: Tinnitus is a very common health problem and is reported in all age groups. The ability to objectively assess tinnitus complaints could provide significant benefits to treat or prevent its progress. In this study, we aimed to identify reliable electrophysiological biomarkers for tinnitus comparing by auditory evoked potential (AEPs), auditory event related potentials (AERPs), and mismatch negativity (MMN) responses between patients with tinnitus and healthy controls. Materials and Methods: This study included ten subjects with tinnitus and ten age and sex-matched healthy controls. All participants gave informed consent forms and were evaluated through basic audiology evaluation, the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory for a structured diagnostic interview and tinnitus severity, and electrophysiological tests. Electrophysiological data were collected from 32 surface scalp electrodes using different frequencies of stimulus for AEPs and the oddball paradigm for AERPs and MMN. Results: The components of AEPs for auditory stimulus with different frequencies, the components of AERPs for standard (StbD) and deviant (Dev) tones, and the difference wave (MMN) were compared between the two groups. Neither AEPs components in auditory stimulus with different frequencies, nor the AERPs components for StbD and Dev tones were affected by tinnitus (p>0.05 for all comparisons). However, the MMN amplitude was significantly decreased in the tinnitus group compared to the control group on the left front (p<0.001), right front (p<0.01), and left back (p<0.01) brain regions, while no significant changes were observed in MMN latency between the two groups. Conclusion: Our results indicate that tinnitus leads to a deficit in the neural networks of the auditory sensory memory, and the MMN amplitude may serve as an objective biomarker for assessing tinnitus.

Keywords

• Tinnitus
• auditory sensory processing
• evoked and event-related potentials
• MMN

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