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The Journal of the Acoustical Society... Dec 2022This paper reviews methods and considerations for measuring tinnitus in clinical trials designed to evaluate treatment options using investigational medicinal products.... (Review)
Review
This paper reviews methods and considerations for measuring tinnitus in clinical trials designed to evaluate treatment options using investigational medicinal products. Tests applied in tinnitus-related research and clinical practice have their own measurement purposes, advantages, and limitations. If the characteristics of each test method are well understood, the test can be effectively used in clinical trials. For the accuracy of clinical trial results, it is necessary to use a test tool with verified validity, reliability, and sensitivity. If a test tool that is likely to have high variability in the same individual is required in the clinical trial, strategies to increase the reliability of the test, such as repeat measurements, may also be needed. In addition, a test tool that meets the purpose of the clinical trial should be selected. For example, the tinnitus questionnaire is appropriate to assess reactions to tinnitus, and measurements of tinnitus loudness or pitch are appropriate to evaluate the psychoacoustic characteristics of tinnitus. In conclusion, the use of validated test tools that meet the purpose of the trial will help with the accuracy of the clinical trial results.
Topics: Humans; Tinnitus; Reproducibility of Results; Psychoacoustics; Surveys and Questionnaires; Pharmaceutical Preparations
PubMed: 36586833
DOI: 10.1121/10.0014699 -
Otology & Neurotology : Official... Feb 2021Tinnitus loudness is a subjective measure, and it does not directly reflect either tinnitus severity or the impact on daily life. Nevertheless, loud tinnitus may be the...
INTRODUCTION
Tinnitus loudness is a subjective measure, and it does not directly reflect either tinnitus severity or the impact on daily life. Nevertheless, loud tinnitus may be the most frequent clinical complaint of tinnitus patients. Factors contributing to the loudness of the phantom sound have rarely been studied. We evaluated both matched and self-rated loudness in a large sample of patients with tinnitus and analyzed the influencing factors among demographic, hearing, and tinnitus characteristics.
METHODS
Two hundred ninety-nine patients with chronic tinnitus were enrolled. We evaluated the matched loudness, minimal masking level (MML), and visual analog scale (VAS) loudness. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed for each loudness measure using independent variables of age, sex, time since tinnitus onset, tinnitus laterality, pure-tone average, tinnitus pitch, tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) score, VAS annoyance, disturbance and daily tinnitus duration, and depression score. We calculated bivariate correlations between each loudness measure and all independent variables.
RESULTS
The psychoacoustic loudness measures (matched loudness and MML) were highly correlated and were affected by the hearing deficit and tinnitus pitch (Pearson r > 0.5 for pure tone averages, and r > 0.3 for tinnitus pitch for both variables, p < 0.05), whereas the subjective measurement (VAS loudness) exhibited little to no correlation with the other two measures and was related to psycho-emotional factors such as the THI score, VAS variables, and depression (Pearson r > 0.6 for VAS annoyance, r > 0.4 for VAS daily duration and disturbance and THI score, r > 0.3 for the depression score, p < 0.05).
CONCLUSION
The matched tinnitus loudness and MML values were influenced principally by the extent of hearing loss and related factors, suggesting that rehabilitation using hearing aids could help reduce perception of tinnitus loudness. A psycho-emotional approach might more effectively lessen self-perceived loudness.
Topics: Hearing Aids; Hearing Loss; Humans; Psychoacoustics; Tinnitus; Visual Analog Scale
PubMed: 33165158
DOI: 10.1097/MAO.0000000000002932 -
Otology & Neurotology : Official... Sep 2016Chronic tinnitus is the persistent sensation of hearing a sound that exists only inside the head. The prevalence of tinnitus in adults in the United States is estimated... (Review)
Review
Chronic tinnitus is the persistent sensation of hearing a sound that exists only inside the head. The prevalence of tinnitus in adults in the United States is estimated at 10 to 15%. For about 20% of these individuals the tinnitus is significantly bothersome. Although myriad therapies for tinnitus are offered (often at significant cost), most are not evidence based. Difficulty in the assessment and further development of interventions for tinnitus stems from the limitations of techniques used to evaluate these interventions. Questionnaires are widely available to "measure" (tinnitus can only be indirectly measured) functional effects of tinnitus, such as difficulty sleeping and concentrating, and negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and annoyance. Questionnaires have recently been documented for sensitivity to change in response to intervention (i.e., "responsiveness"). All of these questionnaires function well to assess the overall impact of tinnitus. The limitations mentioned pertain primarily to measures of tinnitus perception, which typically include the psychoacoustic measures of tinnitus loudness and pitch matches, tinnitus spectral content, minimum masking levels, and residual inhibition. These measures, which are obtained routinely in many clinics and as part of research studies, have not been validated for being diagnostic, prognostic, discriminative, or responsive. In order for these measures to become clinically meaningful, normative standards are needed, both for baseline measures and for repeated measures of tinnitus perception. Evidence-based intervention for tinnitus requires accurately measuring both the perception of, and reactions to, tinnitus.
Topics: Adult; Female; Humans; Male; Perceptual Masking; Psychoacoustics; Surveys and Questionnaires; Tinnitus
PubMed: 27518136
DOI: 10.1097/MAO.0000000000001070 -
Otolaryngologic Clinics of North America Aug 2020Tinnitus is commonly referred to as "ringing in the ears." Epidemiologic studies highlight challenges associated with clinical determination of tinnitus and... (Review)
Review
Tinnitus is commonly referred to as "ringing in the ears." Epidemiologic studies highlight challenges associated with clinical determination of tinnitus and ascertainment of its etiology, functional effects, temporal characteristics, psychoacoustic parameters, and risk factors. Because no standards exist for capturing these factors as measures, direct comparison of data between studies is not possible. This report suggests terminology and definitions to promote standardization, with a brief overview of findings from selected population-based epidemiologic studies. Tinnitus-specific data are presented from the Noise Outcomes in Servicemembers Epidemiology study. Further epidemiologic studies are needed to develop tinnitus treatment and a cure for this chronic condition.
Topics: Hearing Loss; Humans; Noise; Ototoxicity; Psychoacoustics; Risk Factors; Tinnitus
PubMed: 32362561
DOI: 10.1016/j.otc.2020.03.002 -
Anesthesia and Analgesia May 2016
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Humans; Oximetry; Pitch Perception; Psychoacoustics
PubMed: 27101486
DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000001203 -
Handbook of Clinical Neurology 2015Auditory development involves changes in the peripheral and central nervous system along the auditory pathways, and these occur naturally, and in response to... (Review)
Review
Auditory development involves changes in the peripheral and central nervous system along the auditory pathways, and these occur naturally, and in response to stimulation. Human development occurs along a trajectory that can last decades, and is studied using behavioral psychophysics, as well as physiologic measurements with neural imaging. The auditory system constructs a perceptual space that takes information from objects and groups, segregates sounds, and provides meaning and access to communication tools such as language. Auditory signals are processed in a series of analysis stages, from peripheral to central. Coding of information has been studied for features of sound, including frequency, intensity, loudness, and location, in quiet and in the presence of maskers. In the latter case, the ability of the auditory system to perform an analysis of the scene becomes highly relevant. While some basic abilities are well developed at birth, there is a clear prolonged maturation of auditory development well into the teenage years. Maturation involves auditory pathways. However, non-auditory changes (attention, memory, cognition) play an important role in auditory development. The ability of the auditory system to adapt in response to novel stimuli is a key feature of development throughout the nervous system, known as neural plasticity.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Animals; Auditory Pathways; Auditory Perception; Hearing; Humans; Psychoacoustics
PubMed: 25726262
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-444-62630-1.00003-2 -
Trends in Hearing Apr 2016The growing availability of efficient and relatively inexpensive virtual auditory display technology has provided new research platforms to explore the perception of... (Review)
Review
The growing availability of efficient and relatively inexpensive virtual auditory display technology has provided new research platforms to explore the perception of auditory motion. At the same time, deployment of these technologies in command and control as well as in entertainment roles is generating an increasing need to better understand the complex processes underlying auditory motion perception. This is a particularly challenging processing feat because it involves the rapid deconvolution of the relative change in the locations of sound sources produced by rotational and translations of the head in space (self-motion) to enable the perception of actual source motion. The fact that we perceive our auditory world to be stable despite almost continual movement of the head demonstrates the efficiency and effectiveness of this process. This review examines the acoustical basis of auditory motion perception and a wide range of psychophysical, electrophysiological, and cortical imaging studies that have probed the limits and possible mechanisms underlying this perception.
Topics: Acoustics; Animals; Cues; Electroencephalography; Head Movements; Humans; Motion; Motion Perception; Psychoacoustics; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Sound; Sound Localization; Space Perception; Time Factors
PubMed: 27094029
DOI: 10.1177/2331216516644254 -
Neuropsychobiology 2017Sleep deprivation (SD) may result in perceptual and cognitive alterations in healthy subjects. Our objective was to compare whether psychoacoustics and...
BACKGROUND AND AIM
Sleep deprivation (SD) may result in perceptual and cognitive alterations in healthy subjects. Our objective was to compare whether psychoacoustics and neurophysiological variables in healthy subjects were altered after SD of 30-36 h.
METHOD
We examined 22 subjects by means of several psychoacoustics tests, P300 and mismatch negativity (MMN) recordings, and brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) before and after 30-36 h of SD.
RESULTS
In the psychoacoustics tests, we found that after SD, difficulties were experienced by the left ear in the discrimination of words in noise and by the right ear in music discrimination. In the neurophysiological tests, we found delayed latencies of P300 and MMN wave; there was a delay of wave I in both ears, and wave V in the right ear in BAEP. We found significant correlations with positive direction between P300 latency and words in noise and music discrimination in the right ear.
CONCLUSIONS
SD results in alterations of central auditory processing perception and delays of brain neurophysiological responses, with some correlations between the psychoacoustics and neurophysiological tests. These alterations may relate to other cognitive alterations that deserve more research in future studies.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Auditory Perceptual Disorders; Cognition Disorders; Contingent Negative Variation; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem; Female; Healthy Volunteers; Humans; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Psychoacoustics; Sleep Deprivation; Statistics as Topic
PubMed: 29151101
DOI: 10.1159/000481350 -
The European Journal of Neuroscience Mar 2020Several behavioural studies in humans have shown that listening to sounds with two ears that is binaural hearing, provides the human auditory system with extra... (Review)
Review
Several behavioural studies in humans have shown that listening to sounds with two ears that is binaural hearing, provides the human auditory system with extra information on the sound source that is not available when sounds are only perceived through one ear that is monaurally. Binaural processing involves the analysis of phase and level differences between the two ear signals. As monaural cochlea processing (in each ear) precedes the neural stages responsible for binaural processing properties it is reasonable to assume that properties of the cochlea may also be observed in binaural processing. A main characteristic of cochlea processing is its frequency selectivity. In psychoacoustics, there is an ongoing discussion on the frequency selectivity of the binaural auditory system. While some psychoacoustic experiments seem to indicate poorer frequency selectivity of the binaural system than that of the monaural processing others seem to indicate the same frequency selectivity for monaural and binaural processing. This study provides an overview of these seemingly controversial results and the different explanations that were provided to account for the different results.
Topics: Auditory Perception; Hearing; Humans; Psychoacoustics
PubMed: 29359360
DOI: 10.1111/ejn.13837 -
European Journal of Neurology Oct 2020Hidden hearing loss has been reported in patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease; however, the auditory-processing deficits have not been widely explored. We...
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Hidden hearing loss has been reported in patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease; however, the auditory-processing deficits have not been widely explored. We investigated the psychoacoustic and neurophysiological aspects of auditory processing in patients with CMT disease type 1A (CMT1A) and type 2A (CMT2A).
METHODS
A total of 43 patients with CMT1A and 15 patients with CMT2A were prospectively enrolled. All patients with CMT disease had normal sound-detection ability by using pure-tone audiometry. Spectral-ripple discrimination, temporal modulation detection and auditory frequency-following response were compared between CMT1A, CMT2A and control groups.
RESULTS
Although all participants had normal audiograms, patients with CMT disease had difficulty understanding speech in noise. The psychoacoustic auditory processing was somewhat different depending on the underlying pathophysiology of CMT disease. Patients with CMT1A had degraded auditory temporal and spectral processing. Patients with CMT2A had no reduced spectral resolution, but they showed further reduced temporal resolution than the patients with CMT1A. The amplitudes of the frequency-following response were reduced in patients with CMT1A and CMT2A, but the neural timing remained relatively intact.
CONCLUSIONS
When we first assessed the neural representation to speech at the brainstem level, the grand average brainstem responses were reduced in both patients with CMT1A and CMT2A compared with healthy controls. As the psychoacoustic aspects of auditory dysfunctions in CMT1A and CMT2A were somewhat different, it is necessary to consider future auditory rehabilitation methods based on their pathophysiology.
Topics: Auditory Perception; Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease; Humans; Neurophysiology; Psychoacoustics
PubMed: 32478888
DOI: 10.1111/ene.14370