Subjective tinnitus is a common disorder in which people experience a persistent sound in the absence of any external source. The underlying causes of tinnitus are debated – although the condition is strongly associated with hearing loss resulting from auditory damage, much remains to be understood about the neural processes that give rise to the phantom perception. Various classes of neurophysiological theories have been proposed, including the “altered gain” model – in which neurons in the auditory pathway increase their responsiveness to compensate for reduced auditory input following hearing loss – and the “noise cancellation” model – in which disrupted feedback connections from limbic regions are unable to tune out phantom signals. Although these theories account for much observed data, they have not been conclusively supported, and their ability to explain tinnitus is limited by the fact that hearing loss and tinnitus can arise independently and at different times.

 

In the current study, Reisinger et al. (2024) tested an emerging alternative theory based on a Bayesian predictive-coding framework (Sedley et al., 2016) in which the alteration of perceptual priors leads the auditory system to expect a sound that, if functioning normally, it should not expect. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a sample of tinnitus patients (and carefully-matched controls for age, gender, and level of hearing loss), they asked whether tinnitus is associated with anticipatory brain activation, tuned to the carrier-frequency of an expected auditory stimulus. Specifically, the authors predicted that if the predictive-coding framework is correct then individuals with tinnitus should show different regularity-dependent pre-activations of carrier- frequency-specific information compared to the control group, while tone carrier-frequencies should be processed normally in tinnitus patients. They also predicted that any such pre-activations should not be related to levels of reported subjective tinnitus distress, as measured with the short version of the Tinnitus Questionnaire (mini-TQ).

 

The results broadly confirmed the hypotheses, with some caveats. Statistically significant differences in regularity-dependent pre-activations were observed between the tinnitus and control groups, however – curiously – the effects appear to be driven by below-chance decoding in the control group, complicating the interpretration. At the same time, consistent with expectations, frequency processing did not differ significantly between individuals with and without tinnitus, and the observed pre-activations were not significantly related to tinnitus distress. Overall, the findings cautiously support the conclusion that chronic tinnitus is associated with maladaptively upregulated predictive neural processing, and that this phenomenon is unlikely to be explained by either tinnitus distress or hearing loss.

 

The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria and awarded a positive recommendation.

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 3. At least some data/evidence that was used to the answer the research question had been previously accessed by the authors (e.g. downloaded or otherwise received), but the authors certify that they had yet observed any part of the data/evidence prior to Stage 1 IPA.

 

 

• Brain and Neuroscience Advances
• Cortex
• F1000Research
• Imaging Neuroscience
• In&Vertebrates
• NeuroImage: Reports
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research and Practice
• Royal Society Open Science

 

 

1. Reisinger, L., Demarchi, G., Rösch, , S., Trinka, E., Obleser, L., & Weisz, N. (2024). Registered Report: Are anticipatory auditory predictions enhanced in tinnitus and independent of hearing loss? [Stage 2] Acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/9wqjh

 

2. Sedley, W., Friston, K. J., Gander, P. E., Kumar, S., & Griffiths, T. D. (2016). An integrative tinnitus model based on sensory precision. Trends in Neurosciences, 39, 799-812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2016.10.004

Subjective tinnitus is a common disorder in which people experience a persistent sound in the absence of any external source. The underlying causes of tinnitus are debated – although the condition is strongly associated with hearing loss resulting from auditory damage, much remains to be understood about the neural processes that give rise to the phantom perception. Various classes of neurophysiological theories have been proposed, including the “altered gain” model – in which neurons in the auditory pathway increase their responsiveness to compensate for reduced auditory input following hearing loss – and the “noise cancellation” model –  in which disrupted feedback connections from limbic regions are unable to tune out phantom signals. Although these theories account for much observed data, they have not been conclusively supported, and their ability to explain tinnitus is limited by the fact that hearing loss and tinnitus can arise independently and at different times.

 

In the current study, Reisinger et al. (2023) will test an emerging alternative theory based on a Bayesian predictive-coding framework (Sedley et al., 2016) in which the alteration of perceptual priors leads the auditory system to expect a sound that, if functioning normally, it should not expect. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a sample of tinnitus patients (and carefully-matched controls for age, gender, and level of hearing loss), they will ask whether tinnitus is associated with anticipatory brain activation, tuned to the carrier-frequency of an expected auditory stimulus. Specifically, the authors predict that if the predictive-coding framework is correct then individuals with tinnitus should show different regularity-dependent pre-activations of carrier- frequency-specific information compared to the control group, while tone carrier-frequencies should be processed normally in tinnitus patients. They also predict that any such pre-activations should not be related to levels of reported subjective tinnitus distress, as measured with the short version of the Tinnitus Questionnaire (mini-TQ).

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 3. At least some data/evidence that will be used to the answer the research question has been previously accessed by the authors (e.g. downloaded or otherwise received), but the authors certify that they have not yet observed ANY part of the data/evidence.

 

 

• Brain and Neuroscience Advances
• Cortex
• F1000Research
• In&Vertebrates
• NeuroImage: Reports
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research and Practice
• Royal Society Open Science

 

 

Reisinger, L., Demarchi, G., Rösch, , S., Trinka, E., Obleser, L., & Weisz, N.  (2023). Registered Report: Are anticipatory predictions enhanced in tinnitus and independent of hearing loss? In principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/6gvpy

 

Sedley, W., Friston, K. J., Gander, P. E., Kumar, S., & Griffiths, T. D. (2016). An integrative tinnitus model based on sensory precision. Trends in Neurosciences, 39, 799-812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2016.10.004