Auditory Brainstem Responses in Tinnitus: A Review of Who, How, and What?
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
Milloy, V., Fournier, P., et al. (2017).
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 9, Article 237.
This meta-analysis investigates the use of auditory brainstem response (ABR) waveforms to identify subjective tinnitus in deaf or hard of hearing individuals as well as those with typical hearing.
University of Ottawa (Canada); Canadian Institute of Health Research (Canada); Fonds de recherche du Québec—Santé (Canada)
1980-2016
Published and unpublished studies (not further specified)
19
For individuals with normal hearing, raw latency and amplitude auditory brainstem response (ABR) values reveal no significant difference between those with subjective tinnitus and those without tinnitus symptoms.<ul> <li>Mean latency was 0 ms, 0.01 ms, and 0.03 ms higher for waves I, III, and V for individuals with tinnitus and normal hearing, as compared to individuals without tinnitus. </li> <li>"Amplitudes for the normal hearing population were 0.04µV lower for the wave I, and 0.02 and 0.01µV higher for waves III, and V, respectively, for the tinnitus group" (p. 9).</li></ul>For individuals with hearing loss, latency and amplitude ABR values were significantly different between individuals with tinnitus and individuals without tinnitus.<ul> <li>"The tinnitus group lower limit (95% CI) values of 1.75 (I), 3.83 (III), and 5.80 (V) ms were significantly higher than the upper limit (95% CI) values of 1.62 (I), 3.76 (III), and 5.68 (V) ms for the non-tinnitus groups ... the tinnitus groups were 0.21, 0.15, and 0.22 ms delayed for waves I, III, and V compared to the group without tinnitus" (p. 9).</li> <li>The tinnitus group "showed 0.1, 0.09, and 0.06µV lower wave I, III, and V amplitudes" (p. 9) than those without tinnitus.</li></ul>"Although there is increasing interest in the use of ABRs for measuring auditory function in tinnitus individuals, the present scoping review found that the evidence of abnormalities within this population is sparse" (p. 11).
