Contralateral suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions in adolescents with and without Tinnitus

HINALAF, MARÍA; MAGGI, ANA; BIASSONI, ESTHER CRISTINA; HÜG, MERCEDES XIMENA; PEREZ VILLALOBO, JORGE; GRILL, KAREN; ORDOÑEZ, CECILIA; RIGETTI, ANDREA

Buenos AIres

Congreso; 22nd International Congress on Acoustics-ICA 2016; 2016

Argentinian Acousticians Association

The severity of tinnitus has a high variability; it can potentiallycause serious anxiety disorders and in some cases it can even lead todepression. Currently, one of the hypotheses of the genesis of tinnitusinvolves a deterioration in the functioning of medial olivocochlear system(MOCS). The functioning of the MOCS is evaluated through the contralateralsuppression (CS) of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) by comparingthe amplitudes without and with contralateral acoustic stimulation (CAS). Theaim of the present study was to analyze the functioning of the MOCS inadolescents with and without tinnitus through the CS of the TEOAEs. Across-sectional correlational descriptive study was carried out, involving 77adolescents (n = 154 ears) with normal hearing with and without tinnitus, whounderwent TEOAEs testing without and with CAS using white noise at 50 dB. Theresults evidenced that the adolescents without tinnitus showed higher globalamplitude and higher amplitude in the frequencies 1000, 1500, 2000, and 3000Hz, in both conditions without and with CAS, in comparison to the adolescentswith tinnitus. This difference was statistically significant (p<0.05) in the1000 Hz frequency and in the global amplitude, without and with CAS. Inaddition, the adolescents with tinnitus showed less difference between theglobal amplitudes in the conditions without and with CAS (suppression effect).These results suggest a possible relation between the functioning of the MOCSand the presence or absence of tinnitus, which could contribute to confirm thehypothesis of the involvement of the MOCS in the generation of tinnitus.