Test–Retest Reproducibility of Response Duration in Tinnitus Patients With Positive Residual Inhibition

Abstract

Purpose Functional imaging is often used to try to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanism of tinnitus. Residual inhibition, the temporary suppression of tinnitus after application of a masking noise, could be an interesting technique to modulate tinnitus perception in functional imaging paradigms. The purposes of this study were to primarily assess reproducibility of the (partial) positive residual inhibition response duration in patients with tinnitus and to explore its utility in experimental designs. Method Patients with tinnitus exhibiting a (partial) positive residual inhibition response or tinnitus reduction after a 1-min white noise presentation were selected from a broad consulting tinnitus population. In 27 patients, this response was tested 4 times: twice during initial testing and twice during a retest of the psychoacoustic tinnitus measures, 4–8 weeks after initial consultation. In 17 patients with stable residual inhibition responses, reproducibility of response duration, the duration of tinnitus reduction up to pretesting state, was analyzed. Results Initial testing showed a residual inhibition duration of 29.5 s on average. Test–retest reproducibility of response duration was shown to be reliable with an ICC(3, 4) of .871 (95% CI [0.733, 0.948]) and a standard error of measurement of 6.64 s. Conclusions This study indicates the good test–retest reproducibility of residual inhibition duration in our subset of 17 patients with stable (partial) positive residual inhibition. Residual inhibition is, therefore, a technique that can potentially be used for temporary tinnitus manipulation in experimental paradigms to unravel tinnitus pathophysiology.

Susceptibility to Residual Inhibition is Associated with Hearing Loss and Tinnitus Chronicity

“…The prevalence of RI observed in our study, i.e. 58 of 74 subjects (78%) with some degree of residual inhibition and 48 subjects (65%) with substantial tinnitus suppression, is comparable to previous studies reporting a prevalence between 61.5% and 88.0% (Deklerck et al, 2019;Vernon and Meikle, 2003;Henry et al, 2000;Roberts et al, 2008). The mean maximum RI time of 93.3 seconds is comparable to the findings of Vernon and Meikle (2003).…”

“…Previous studies demonstrated that RI can be consistently reproducible between sessions indicating that there is no long-term adaptation affecting test-retest assessment (Roberts et al, 2008;Deklerck et al, 2019). However, the effect of consecutive repeated stimulation on shortterm adaptation and the robustness of RI has not yet been comprehensively studied in human subjects.…”

Susceptibility to Residual Inhibition Is Associated With Hearing Loss and Tinnitus Chronicity

“…This finding validates that RI can be used to induce repeated states with or without tinnitus in the same subject, which is important in the context of within-subject comparison studies (e.g., Hu et al., 2019). The prevalence of RI observed in our study, that is, 58 of 74 subjects (78%) with some degree of residual inhibition and 48 subjects (65%) with substantial tinnitus suppression, is comparable to previous studies reporting a prevalence between 61.5% and 88.0% (Deklerck et al., 2019; Henry & Meikle, 2000; Roberts et al., 2008; Vernon & Meikle, 2003). The mean maximum RI time of 93.3 seconds is comparable to the findings of Vernon and Meikle (2003).…”

“…Previous studies demonstrated that RI can be consistently reproducible between sessions indicating that there is no long-term adaptation affecting test-retest assessment (Deklerck et al, 2019;Roberts et al, 2008). However, the effect of consecutive repeated stimulation on shortterm adaptation and the robustness of RI has not yet been comprehensively studied in human subjects.…”

The stochastic resonance model of auditory perception: A unified explanation of tinnitus development, Zwicker tone illusion, and residual inhibition

“…In contrast, the presentation of masking noise causes RI after the end of noise presentation. As RI is a technique to temporarily modulate the tinnitus percept, it is a potential target for experimental studies on tinnitus mechanisms (Deklerck et al, 2019).…”