I can hear mine anytime I am reminded of it, but, like Hans, I have learned to ignore it much of the time. I recall an abstract confirming Fred's final paragraph, that when hair cells in the cochlea are damaged, the corresponding brain circuits "go into a loop" "searching" for the non-existent signal. I found an abstract relating tinnitus to phantom pain in missing limbs (http://www.pnas.org/content/95/17/10340.short). I have read about "the mirror cure" for phantom limb pain (e.g. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mirror-cure/). Can anyone devise a corresponding "cure" for tinnitus, assuming that tinnitus and phantom limb pain have similar causes and assuming that the mirror cure for phantom pain works? On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 9:48 AM, Fred Lunnon <fred.lunnon@gmail.com> wrote:
I have never studied this topic in any formal fashion. My own (mild, high-frequency) tinnitus becomes noticeable only when I listen to music live, or on high-quality audio.
This and further observation suggests that (in particular) your auditory channel is equipped with a sophisticated filter / Fourier analyser which detects when a particular frequency band is missing from the input, and increases its sensitivity to compensate.
Paradoxically then, if for some reason you have developed narrow-band deafness to that frequency, the sensitivity may become cranked up to the point where it is reproducing random noise --- maybe even (positive) feedback, in some sense?
Fred Lunnon
On 5/15/15, Hans Havermann <gladhobo@teksavvy.com> wrote:
Tinnitus is a supposedly rather common condition which was devastating to me when I developed it. Yes, one can and does learn to ignore it but it’s unquestionably the elephant in the room.
On May 14, 2015, at 9:16 PM, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
First time I recall the canceling-out Fred speaks of is noticing that a new refrigerator motor in my family home was quite audible at first, but over time became imperceptible. Until the thermostat would turn it off — at which moment someone might say, sincerely, "What was that?!"
When I was away at college my parents moved to another town nearby. My first time home it was quite noticeable that a plane would fly overhead every 6 minutes. Pretty soon, whenever I was there, the planes became imperceptible — unless I thought about them, in which case they were suddenly there.
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