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This study looked at the possible effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals who came to our clinic seeking relief from tinnitus. The performance of the subjects during the COVID-19 pandemic was compared with similar individuals who came to our clinic before the pandemic began. The study involved 50 adults with chronic tinnitus, made up of a study group (24 subjects tested during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021) and a control group before the pandemic began (26 subjects tested from 2013 to 2017). None of the 24 reported having contracted COVID-19. Data collection involved the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) questionnaire, audiological tests, and quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG). In terms of THI scores, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups. However, with regard to qEEG, some changes were observed, with significant decreases in alpha and beta band activity in the study group compared to the control group, particularly over the auditory cortex. We conclude that COVID-19 did not have a discernible impact on the general well-being of individuals with tinnitus. However, it did appear to alter brain activity, specifically in the alpha and beta bands over the auditory cortex, and these reults warrant further investigation.

This study investigated whether visual attention affects the reliability (i.e., repeatability) of transiently evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) magnitudes or of medial olivocochlear reflex (MOCR) estimates. TEOAEs were measured during three visual attentional conditions: control (subject were seated with eyes closed); passive (subjects looked at a pattern of squares on a computer screen); and active (subjects silently counted an occasionally inverted pattern). To estimate reliability, the whole recording session was repeated the next day. The results showed that visual attention does not significantly affect TEOAE or MOCR magnitudes-or their reliability. It is therefore possible to employ visual stimuli (e.g., watching a silent movie) during TEOAE experiments, a procedure sometimes used during testing to prevent subjects from falling asleep or to keep children still and quiet.

The medial olivocochlear (MOC) system is thought to be responsible for modulation of peripheral hearing through descending (efferent) pathways. This study investigates the connection between peripheral hearing function and auditory attention tasks of different degrees of difficulty. Peripheral hearing function was evaluated by analyzing the amount of change in otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) by contralateral acoustic stimulation (CAS), a well-known effect of the MOC system. Simultaneously, levels of attention were evaluated by event-related potentials (ERPs). The ERPs showed clear differences in processing tasks of different difficulty, but paradoxically there was no difference in the amount of OAE change brought about by CAS. There was also no effect on OAE latency, nor was there any difference in noise level or number of rejected trials. However, we observed that the changes in OAEs by CAS for easy and hard tasks were correlated with the magnitude of the P3 wave in the ERP. This suggests there might be some sort of mutual compensation mechanism - presently unknown - between periphery and cortex., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Several studies have suggested that distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) may be an early marker not only of hearing loss (HL) but also of tinnitus. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether DPOAEs measured up to 16 kHz are affected by the presence of tinnitus. Pure tone thresholds and DPOAEs were measured in two groups: 55 patients with tinnitus and 63 subjects without tinnitus. The subjects were divided into three groups according to their audiometric results-better than 25 dB HL at all tested frequencies from 0.125 to 16 kHz, better than 25 dB up to 8 kHz, and hearing impaired. Receiver operator characteristics (ROCs) were used to test whether DPOAEs could differentiate between normal hearing, hearing loss, and tinnitus. Comparison of tinnitus subjects with the control group, matched accurately according to thresholds, did not yield any significant difference in DPOAEs. However, in both these groups hearing loss was accompanied by a decrease in DPOAEs, specifically, at 2-6 kHz and 16 kHz. The results suggest that any decrease in DPOAEs seems to be related only to hearing loss and there is no additional effect from tinnitus.

The medial olivocochlear (MOC) system is thought to be responsible for modulation of peripheral hearing through descending (efferent) pathways. This study investigated the connection between peripheral hearing function and conscious attention during two different modality tasks, auditory and visual. Peripheral hearing function was evaluated by analyzing the amount of suppression of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) by contralateral acoustic stimulation (CAS), a well-known effect of the MOC. Simultaneously, attention was evaluated by event-related potentials (ERPs). Although the ERPs showed clear differences in processing of auditory and visual tasks, there were no differences in the levels of OAE suppression. We also analyzed OAEs for the highest magnitude resonant mode signal detected by the matching pursuit method, but again did not find a significant effect of task, and no difference in noise level or number of rejected trials. However, for auditory tasks, the amplitude of the P3 cognitive wave negatively correlated with the level of OAE suppression. We conclude that there seems to be no change in MOC function when performing different modality tasks, although the cortex still remains able to modulate some aspects of MOC activity.