Acoustic coordinated reset therapy for tinnitus with perceptually relevant frequency spacing and levels

Abstract

Abstract Acoustic coordinated reset (CR) therapy based on neuromodulation and neuroplasticity principles has been proposed for the treatment of tonal tinnitus. The original therapy involved periodic delivery of randomly ordered sequences of four low-level tones centered around the frequency of a tone that matched the tinnitus pitch, fT, with fixed ratios relative to fT and delivered several hours/day over several weeks. Here we transform the original CR tone selection method to a more perceptually-relevant equivalent rectangular bandwidth (ERB) frequency scale, the ERBN-number scale. Specifically, we provide a mathematical model that enables calculation of CR tones that accounts for fT- and hearing loss-related ERB widening and ERB overlaps and gaps of CR tone alignments. Further, the model ensures symmetric CR tone alignments based on modelling studies that indicate the effect is optimal if the CR stimuli are symmetrically spaced relative to the tinnitus-related population of abnormally synchronized cortical neurons to activate the adjacent sub-populations. We also present experimentally testable ERB-based CR tone alignment strategies and explain how to use the ERB-based model in experiments, clinical studies, other types of tinnitus sound treatment such as tailor-made notch music training and limitations of our approach.