The AudioNotch Tinnitus Treatment Blog

An interesting paper reveals a little bit more about the relationship between abnormal lateral inhibition and tinnitus. The abstract is a bit opaque:
Tinnitus is likely initiated by a discontinuity in the spontaneous or low-level-stimulus induced neural activity across auditory nerve fibers with different characteristic frequency (CF). This discontinuity may be caused by functional loss of outer hair cells in those regions where inner hair cells are preserved.

The reduced spontaneous activity for nerve fibers with CFs in the hearing loss range may result in a reduction of lateral inhibition at more central levels. This reduced lateral inhibition … Continue Reading