Bridging the Gap between Psychophysiological and Audiological Factors in the Assessment of Tinnitus: An EEG Investigation in the Beta Band.

Background: Despite substantial progress in investigating its psychophysical complexity, tinnitus remains a scientific and clinical enigma. The present study, through an ecological and multidisciplinary approach, aims to identify associations between electroencephalographic (EEG) and psycho-audiological variables.

Methods: EEG beta activity, often related to stress and anxiety, was acquired from 12 tinnitus patients (TIN group) and 7 controls (CONT group) during an audio cognitive task and at rest.

Listening Effort in Tinnitus: A Pilot Study Employing a Light EEG Headset and Skin Conductance Assessment during the Listening to a Continuous Speech Stimulus under Different SNR Conditions.

Background noise elicits listening effort. What else is tinnitus if not an endogenous background noise? From such reasoning, we hypothesized the occurrence of increased listening effort in tinnitus patients during listening tasks. Such a hypothesis was tested by investigating some indices of listening effort through electroencephalographic and skin conductance, particularly parietal and frontal alpha and electrodermal activity (EDA).