Tinnitus and depression

Brazilian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology, 2013

Ti nnitus has been associated with several psychiatric disorders, however there are still several questions regarding such association. Objective: To assess the scientific evidence on the associations between symptoms of depression, depression, and tinnitus. Method: A systematic review was performed using PubMed, Lilacs, and SciELO scientific databases. This review included studies published in Portuguese, Spanish, or English correlating tinnitus with depression; letters to the editor and case reports were excluded. Results: A total of 64 studies were identified, of which only 20 met the inclusion criteria and only 2 were case-control clinical trials. The majority of the studies (n = 18) found that depression is associated with tinnitus, either as a predisposition-resulting in poor adaptation to tinnitus or as a consequence of severe disease. Conclusion: An overall assessment of all of the selected studies suggests at least 3 possible associations between depression and tinnitus: depression affecting tinnitus, tinnitus predisposing individuals to depression, and tinnitus appearing as a comorbidity in patients with depression. There is a high prevalence of depressive symptoms in individuals with tinnitus, but the mechanisms by which depression and tinnitus mutually interact, are not fully understood.

Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery, 2011

Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery, 2011

Objective. In this study, the authors investigated whether tinnitus severity is a problem related to depression. If so, the following 2 conditions should be fulfilled: first, there should be evidence for the presence of moderate to severe depressive symptomatology in a substantial group of tinnitus patients; second, there should be evidence of a substantial relationship between depressive symptoms and tinnitus severity.

Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, 2011

Objective. In this study, the authors investigated whether tinnitus severity is a problem related to depression. If so, the following 2 conditions should be fulfilled: first, there should be evidence for the presence of moderate to severe depressive symptomatology in a substantial group of tinnitus patients; second, there should be evidence of a substantial relationship between depressive symptoms and tinnitus severity.

Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery, 2011

Hearing Research, 2014

During the process of tinnitus diagnostics, various psychometric instruments are used to measure tinnitus-related distress. The aim of present work was to explore whether candidates for biological correlates of the tinnitus-related distress could be found in peripheral blood of patients and if so, whether there was association between them and psychometric scores that reflect tinnitus-related distress. The concentrations of interleukin-1b (IL1b), interleukin-6 (IL6), tumor necrosis factor-a (TNFa) and a brain-derived neutrotrophic factor (BDNF) were measured in serum of 30 patients diagnosed with chronic tinnitus and tested for correlation with psychometric scores collected on the same day. Spearman's correlation analyses detected significant positive association between the concentrations of tumor necrosis factor a and tinnitus loudness, total perceived stress, tension and depression and a negative association between tumor necrosis factor a and a psychometric score "joy". Concentrations of interleukin-1b correlated with the awareness grade of tinnitus. The correlation between visual analogue scale (VAS) "loudness" and tumor necrosis factor a as well as between "joy" and tumor necrosis factor a retained their significance (p < 0.00167) after the application of Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. Partial correlations removing the effects of age, hearing loss and the duration of tinnitus verified the results obtained using Spearman correlation. We conclude that measuring the concentrations of selected circulating cytokines could possibly become an additional objective element of tinnitus diagnostics in the future.

Clinical and investigative medicine. Medecine clinique et experimentale, 2016

The aim of the study was to investigate the correlation between THI (Tinnitus Handicap Inventory) and BDS (Beck Depression Scale). High frequency thresholds and PTA (Pure Tone Audiometer) thresholds for the patients were measured in 44 patients with tinnitus (bilateral=13; unilateral=31). Tinnitus frequency and intensity were measured using one-pair method with high frequency audiometer Interacoustic AC40. Applied BDS and THI scores are evaluated for all patients. Our findings are analysed statistically with SPSS v.21 and BDS and THI correlation with tinnitus intensity and frequency was executed. The mean value of tinnitus frequency was 10 kHz (min 0.25 kHz, max16 kHz and SD 4.26), mean tinnitus intensity was 50.6 dB (min 15 dB, max 110 dB and SD 26.9 dB) mean THI score was 38.04 (min 10, max 86 and SD 20.03) and mean BDS score was 9.45 (min 0, max 28 and SD 6.49). There was no statistical correlation between THI score and tinnitus frequency (r=0.055, p=0.787). Moderate correlation ...

Hearing Research, 2013

Chronic tinnitus affects approximately 5% of the population. Severe distress due to the phantom noise is experienced by 20% of the tinnitus patients. This distress cannot be predicted by psychoacoustic features of the tinnitus. It is commonly assumed that negative cognitive emotional evaluation of the tinnitus and its expected consequences is a major factor that determines the impact of tinnitus-related distress. Models of tinnitus distress and recently conducted research propose differences in limbic, frontal and parietal processing between highly and low distressed tinnitus patients. An experimental paradigm using verbal material to stimulate cognitive emotional processing of tinnitus-related information was conducted. Age and sex matched highly (n ¼ 16) and low (n ¼ 16) distressed tinnitus patients and healthy controls (n ¼ 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while sentences with neutral, negative or tinnitus-related content were presented. A random effects group analysis was performed on the basis of the general linear model. Tinnitus patients showed stronger activations to tinnitus-related sentences in comparison to neutral sentences than healthy controls in various limbic/ emotion processing areas, such as the anterior cingulate cortex, midcingulate cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, retrosplenial cortex and insula and also in frontal areas. Highly and low distressed tinnitus patients differed in terms of activation of the left middle frontal gyrus. A connectivity analysis and correlational analysis between the predictors of the general linear model of relevant contrasts and tinnitus-related distress further supported the idea of a fronto-parietal-cingulate network, which seems to be more active in highly distressed tinnitus patients. This network may present an aspecific distress network. Based on the findings the left middle frontal gyrus and the right medial frontal gyrus are suggested as target regions for neuromodulatory approaches in the treatment of tinnitus. For future studies we recommend the use of idiosyncratic stimulus material.

Frontiers in Neurology, 2022

Results: We found that the overall incidence rate for MDD was 0.78 (95% CI = 0.76∼0.80) per 100 person-years, being 1.17 (95% CI = 1.14∼1.21) among the study cohorts and 0.38 (95% CI = 0.36∼0.40) among the comparison cohorts. The log-rank test revealed that the patients in the study cohort had significantly lower one-year MDD-free survival when compared to the comparison cohort (p < 0.001). Cox proportional hazards analysis showed that the patients in the study cohort had a higher hazard of developing MDD than the patients in the comparison cohort (adjusted HR = 3.08, 95% CI = 2.90∼3.27). Conclusions: In this study, we demonstrate that tinnitus is associated with an increased hazard of subsequent MDD in Taiwan.

Neural Plasticity, 2014

Introduction. Comorbid psychiatric disorders are frequent among patients affected by tinnitus. There are mutual clinical influences between tinnitus and psychiatric disorders, as well as neurobiological relations based on partially overlapping hodological and neuroplastic phenomena. The aim of the present paper is to review the evidence of alterations in brain networks underlying tinnitus physiopathology and to discuss them in light of the current knowledge of the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders. Methods. Relevant literature was identified through a search on Medline and PubMed; search terms included tinnitus, brain, plasticity, cortex, network, and pathways. Results. Tinnitus phenomenon results from systemic-neurootological triggers followed by neuronal remapping within several auditory and nonauditory pathways. Plastic reorganization and white matter alterations within limbic system, arcuate fasciculus, insula, salience network, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, auditory pathways, ffrontocortical, and thalamocortical networks are discussed. Discussion. Several overlapping brain network alterations do exist between tinnitus and psychiatric disorders. Tinnitus, initially related to a clinicoanatomical approach based on a cortical localizationism, could be better explained by an holistic or associationist approach considering psychic functions and tinnitus as emergent properties of partially overlapping large-scale neural networks.