I would characterize my hearing as very good.
I listen to music to help me go to sleep. During the past few years I usually experience, after a
few minutes of listening, SOAE's in my left ear when it is occluded by the pillow. The pulses, are loud
enough to be easily recorded, and correspond roughly to voice band onsets in my right ear. The effect
goes away when I take my head off the pillow and the music is presented at more or less equal volumes to both ears.
So some sort of bilateral (if this is the right word) mechanism exists. Quite likely this is causes the cricket type of tinnitus.
Information correlating tinnitus with band specific lateral hearing differences, and tuned amplification, so that both ears
get similar signals, may be useful.
Dave Smith
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Gygi"
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AUDITORY] SOAEs and tinnitus
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 17:11:40 +0000
The problem is that there are also people (e.g., myself) who have tinnitus but exhibit no SOAEs. Further, SOAE's don't really "sound" like tinnitus - there are several different "sounds" of tinnitus, suchas ringing, "crickets" and very rarely a low frequency hum. I have crickets myself. This is the problem, as perviously stated, with grouping all disorders that kind of behave like tinnitus under one heading, when they might have several different etiologies.
Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Bell [mailto:andrew.bell@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 12:43 AM
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Technique can pinpoint tinnitus
Matt and list:
Thanks for pointer to Ceranic et al (1998), a paper which gives clear
evidence that spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs) and tinnitus are
closely related. If SOAEs sound like tinnitus and behave like tinnitus,
isn't it likely that they are (in some respect) tinnitus?
If we are aiming to pinpoint tinnitus, then SOAEs offer the most direct
tool, and Ceranic et al. support this idea. Their Table 5 shows that
patients with head injury and tinnitus displayed 4.4 SOAEs per ear, compared
to 1.7 with normals and 0.25 with those having head injury without tinnitus.
So did the head injury damage the cochlea and generate a tinnitus sensation
(via afferent pathways), or did the injury damage the brain, which responded
by sending a signal to the cochlea (via efferent pathways)? As you say, that
question is still very much open, but it would definitely repay some
attention.
Andrew.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrew Bell
Research School of Biology (RSB)
The Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
T: +61 2 6125 5145
F: +61 2 6125 3808
andrew.bell@xxxxxxxxxx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Further, tinnitus can also be induced by head injury [6]. In
> this case, it is possible that the inner ear is damaged and
> this causes a peripheral type of tinnitus, which again is a
> cochlear amplifier dysfunction. Until we can successfully
> trace this cause and develop methods such as cellular
> regeneration possibly using stem cells - we can tinker and
> experiment using all sorts of procedures to quash the
> problem, but they will never be as sophisticated as actually
> repairing the biology.
>
>
>
> [6] @ARTICLE{ceranic:1998,
> author = {Ceranic, B.J. and Prasher, D.K. and Raglan, E.
> and Luxon, L.M.},
> title = {{Tinnitus after head injury: evidence from
> otoacoustic emissions}},
> journal = {Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery \& Psychiatry},
> year = {1998},
> volume = {65},
> pages = {523--529},
> number = {4},
> publisher = {BMJ}
> }
>