Investigation of Listening Effort in Tinnitus Patients by Providing Similar Peripheral Auditory Function With Control...

Previous studies have investigated listening effort in tinnitus patients compared to healthy individuals. These studies reported similar pure tone hearing thresholds between groups but did not investigate possible peripheral auditory dysfunction, which could affect the central auditory system and increase listening effort even when hearing thresholds are within the normal hearing range. This study aimed to investigate the presence of listening effort in tinnitus patients by controlling for peripheral auditory function (PAF).

This study included 16 chronic tinnitus patients and 23 matched healthy controls, both with normal hearing thresholds. The subjects were assessed using 0.125-20 kHz pure-tone audiometry, a visual analogue scale (VAS), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), the matrix test, auditory brainstem response (ABR), and electroencephalography (EEG). EEG alpha band activity was recorded from parietal electrodes (P3, P4, Pz).

The increase in alpha band power during the encoding phase of sentence presentation in tinnitus patients was less than that in the control group. We found higher VAS scores in tinnitus participants. We did not find significant differences in matrix test scores, ABR amplitude, or absolute latency values between groups. The EEG alpha power change and THI did not show a significant correlation.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the listening effort of tinnitus patients and healthy controls using EEG alpha band power while controlling for hearing and PAF. Tinnitus patients may expend more listening-related effort despite having similar PAF to the control group.