The Potential Role of Auditory Prediction in Decompensated Tinnitus: An Auditory Mismatch Negativity Study

1. BackgroundSome tinnitus subjects habituate to their tinnitus but some others do not and complain of its annoyance so much. Normal sensory memory and change detection processes are needed for detecting the tinnitus signal as a prediction error and habituating to tinnitus. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare MMN as the index of sensory memory and change detection among the studied groups to search for the reason why some tinnitus subjects habituate to their tinnitus but some others do not. 3. ResultsThe results showed that MMN amplitude and area under the curve for the higher frequency deviant and for the silent gap deviant were significantly larger in decompensated tinnitus group compared to normal control and compensated tinnitus group.4. Conclusions These results suggested that the auditory processing in habituated tinnitus subjects works similar to normal controls at the level of MMN processing but deficits of sensory memory and prediction error prevents habituating to tinnitus in decompensated tinnitus subjects. Sensory memory is occupied by the intrinsic tinnitus signal, so the change detection mechanism is not able to retain the incoming signal to use it for comparison and detect the changes and results in constant updating of tinnitus percept from memory andprevents habituation. 5. References Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 11(2), 12738.Hallam, R. S., Jakes, S. C., & Hinchcliffe, R. (1988). Cognitive variables in tinnitus annoyance. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 27(3), 213222.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8260.1988.tb00778.x Joos, K., Gilles, A., Van de Heyning, P., De Ridder, D., & Vanneste, S. (2014). From sensation to percept: theneural signature of auditory event-related potentials. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 42, 148-156. Mahmoudian, S., Farhadi, M., Najafi-Koopaie, M., Darestani-Farahani, E., Mohebbi, M., Dengler, R., Lenarz, T. (2013). Central auditory processing during chronic tinnitus as indexed by topographical maps of the mismatch negativity obtained with the multi-feature paradigm. Brain Research, 1527, 161173 Walpurger, V., Hebing-Lennartz, G., Denecke, H., & Pietrowsky, R. (2003). Habituation deficit in auditoryevent-related potentials in tinnitus complainers. Hearing Research, 181(12), 5764.