Hearing Loss Increases Inhibitory Effects of Prefrontal Cortex Stimulation on Sound Evoked Activity in Medial Geniculate Nucleus.

Sensory gating is the process whereby irrelevant sensory stimuli are inhibited on their way to higher cortical areas, allowing for focus on salient information. Sensory gating circuitry includes the thalamus as well as several cortical regions including the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Defective sensory gating has been implicated in a range of neurological disorders, including tinnitus, a phantom auditory perception strongly associated with cochlear trauma.