Pathophysiology of tinnitus.

The hypothesis is presented that certain forms of tinnitus are related to abnormal phase-locking of discharges in groups of auditory nerve fibers. Recent developments in auditory neurophysiology have shown that neural coding of the temporal pattern of sounds plays an important role in the analysis of complex sounds. In addition, it has been demonstrated that when some other cranial nerves are damaged, artificial synapses can occur between individual nerve fibers such that ephaptic transmission between nerve fibers is facilitated. Such "crosstalk" between auditory nerve fibers is assumed to result in phase-locking of the spontaneous activity of groups of neurons which in the absence of external sounds creates a neural pattern that resembles that evoked by sounds.