Recent work has shown that sharp spectral edges in acoustic stimuli might have advantageous effects in the treatment of tonal tinnitus. In the course of this paper, we evaluate the long-term effects of spectrally notched hearing aids on the subjective tinnitus distress. By merging recent experimental work with a computational tinnitus model, we modified the commercially available behind-the-ear hearing aids so that a frequency band of 0.5 octaves, centered on the patient’s individual tinnitus frequency, was blocked out. Those hearing aids employ a steep notch filter that filters environmental sounds to suppress the tinnitus-related changes in neural firing by lateral inhibition. The computational model reveals a renormalization of pathologically increased neural response reliability and synchrony in response to spectrally modified input. The target group, fitted with spectrally notched hearing aids, was matched with a comparable control group, fitted with standard hearing aids of the same type but without a notch filter. We analyze the subjective self-assessment by tinnitus questionnaires, and we monitor the objective distress correlates in auditory evoked response phase data. Both, subjective and objective results show a noticeable trend of a larger therapeutic benefit for notched hearing correction.

中文翻译：

---

使用缺口环境声音进行助听器支持的耳鸣治疗的实施和长期评估

最近的工作表明，声刺激中的尖锐频谱边缘可能对音调性耳鸣的治疗产生有利影响。在本文中，我们评估了频谱缺口助听器对主观耳鸣困扰的长期影响。通过将最近的实验工作与计算耳鸣模型相结合，我们修改了市售的耳后助听器，以便屏蔽以患者个人耳鸣频率为中心的 0.5 个八度音阶的频带。这些助听器采用陡峭的陷波滤波器过滤环境声音，以通过侧向抑制抑制与耳鸣相关的神经放电变化。计算模型揭示了病理性增加的神经反应可靠性和同步性的重整化，以响应谱修改输入。目标组配备了频谱陷波助听器，与一个可比较的对照组相匹配，对照组配备了相同类型但没有陷波滤波器的标准助听器。我们通过耳鸣问卷分析主观自我评估，并监测听觉诱发反应阶段数据中的客观痛苦相关性。主观和客观结果都显示出明显的趋势，即缺口听力矫正具有更大的治疗益处。