We appreciate the comment of Dr. Melcher on our manuscript ‘‘Auditory cortex is implicated in tinnitus distress: a voxel-based morphometry study’’ (Brain Structure and Function; 2013 Feb 24; [Epub ahead of print]). Dr. Melcher points out in her Letter to the Editor that we did not cite her study. She and her co-workers found no structural differences between the participants who had tinnitus and those of a matched control group. In a subsequent analysis of the same sample, they found that hearing threshold in the highfrequency range may represent a potentially significant third variable that may explain some of the variance in voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies of tinnitus. Our paper presents original data and we discussed our findings in the context of many published, both positive and negative, studies. We agree that the paper by Melcher et al. (‘‘Subcallosal brain structure: correlation with hearing threshold at supra-clinical frequencies ([8 kHz), but not with tinnitus’’ published online three months before the submission of our manuscript in Hearing Research; 295:79–86; 2013) should have been included in this series of studies with respect to hearing loss and tinnitus. Their study adds to methodological discussions regarding tinnitus research. However, we mentioned similar studies that did not detect structural differences between tinnitus and non-tinnitus groups (e.g., Husain et al.; Neuroanatomical changes due to hearing loss and chronic tinnitus: a combined VBM and DTI study; Brain Research; 1369:74–88; 2011), and we discussed the heterogeneity of the available literature on this topic explicitly. We must, therefore, disagree with Dr. Melcher’s statement in her letter that we focused ‘‘on positive results while neglecting negative ones’’. In our paper, we concluded that ‘‘In future, VBM findings of group contrasts with respect to temporal cortex should be inspected for tinnitus distress, hearing function, age, and gender.’’ This conclusion is very similar to Dr. Melcher’s statement in her letter: ‘‘We proposed that some of the previously reported differences in brain structure were in fact, not related to tinnitus and were instead related to a person’s hearing threshold over a frequency range not considered in the previous work.’’ The only difference is that we did not specifically focus on the potential relevance of hearing function in the high-frequency range. Thus, in our opinion, we did not ‘‘present a distorted ... view of the VBM/tinnitus literature’’ as Dr. Melcher stated in her letter. We indeed agree that the findings of structural changes related to ‘‘hearing sensitivity at frequencies generally considered unnecessary for normal human auditory behaviour is surprising and worthy of follow up’’ but the results reported by Melcher et al. (‘‘Subcallosal brain structure: Correlation with hearing threshold at supra-clinical frequencies ([ 8 kHz), but not with tinnitus’’; Hearing Research; 295:79–86; 2013) have to be confirmed in prospective studies, before definite conclusions can be drawn. In summary, we apologize for our mistake not citing the paper of Melcher and co-workers. We agree that advances M. Schecklmann (&) B. Langguth Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany e-mail: martin.schecklmann@medbo.de