The Erlangen model of tinnitus development-New perspective and treatment strategy

Abstract

About one sixth of the population of western industrialized nations suffers from chronic, subjective tinnitus, causing socioeconomic treatment and follow-up costs of almost 22billion euros per year in Germany alone. According to the prevailing view, tinnitus develops as aconsequence of amaladaptive neurophysiological process in the brain triggered by hearing loss. The Erlangen model of tinnitus development presented here is intended to propose acomprehensive neurophysiological explanation for the initial occurrence of the phantom sound after hearing loss. Based on the model, anew treatment strategy will be developed. The model summarized here is based on various animal and human physiological studies conducted in recent years. The Erlangen model considers subjective tinnitus as aside effect of aphysiological mechanism that permanently optimizes information transmission into the auditory system by means of stochastic resonance (SR) even in the healthy auditory system. In fact, hearing-impaired patients with tinnitus hear better on average than those without tinnitus. This unfamiliar perspective on the phantom percept may already help affected patients to cope better with their suffering. In addition, based on the model, low intensity noise tinnitus suppression (LINTS) has been developed as anew, individually adapted treatment strategy for tonal tinnitus and has already been successfully tested in patients. Apossible limiting factor for the model and treatment strategy is the pitch of the tinnitus percept, which may require adjustments to the treatment strategy for frequencies above about 5 kHz.