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Acquired auditory processing disorders including age dependent hearing loss, speech discrimination deficits, tinnitus or hyperacusis, require a personalized diagnosis to assign the individual cause within the auditory hierarchy to either the periphery, subcortical or distinct cortical or cortico-fugal neuronal dysfunctions. The well-functioning feedforward and feedback PV-IN network is an essential precondition for temporal intracortical network function in audition that above all senses relies on high speed of information flow (Zajac I.T. and Nettelbeck T., 2018). We hypothesize disease-specific deficits in temporal intracortical network function in auditory circuits. Therefore, the diagnostic of those should have a special significance. We used time-sensitive MEG-OPM measurements and aimed to study different auditory stimulus paradigms to detect fast auditory processing in different groups of tinnitus with and without hyperacusis or presbycusis. We expect this method to become an efficient diagnostic strategy to fathom peripheral or central contribution of the distinct auditory impairments in the future to improve individualized targeted interventional therapies. Here we will present preliminary results demonstrating the usability and function of the OPM-MEG for hearing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, conflicting views on the neural correlate of tinnitus hinder the development of effective diagnosis and therapy for tinnitus (Knipper et al., Ruttiger, 2020). Although hyperacusis often co-occurs with tinnitus, it is until now considered neither in clinical diagnosis nor for targeted, individualized therapies. On the basis of findings with objective functional biomarkers (PTT, ABR, fMRI, EEG) used in patients, we challenge the hypothesis that co-occurance of hyperacusis worsens tinnitus percept towards a disease that most requires treatment and therapy. In this context, the hypothesis of the successful use of cognitive therapies for hyperacusis and tinnitus is particularly interesting for future therapy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]