Tinnitus: better understanding these phantom perceptions and their neurophysiological correlates

Tinnitus, often referred to as 'ringing in the ears,' is a disabling medical condition characterized by a subjective perception of sound without any external acoustic stimulus. This intriguing phenomenon is an auditory disorder affecting a significant portion of the general population, with a prevalence around 14%. Unlike auditory hallucinations, which are phantom phenomena manifesting as the perception of voices and musical hallucinations, tinnitus sensations are generally of an unstructured acoustic nature, with no communicative meaning, such as buzzing, hissing, or ringing. Analogous to phantom limb pain, which is the discomfort or pain felt at the site of an amputated limb, subjective tinnitus is considered as a phantom sound following hearing loss. This has led some to suggest tinnitus as a purely peripheral disorder. However, hearing loss alone does not fully explain tinnitus perception. Indeed, not everyone with hearing loss experiences tinnitus, while some individuals recover from tinnitus without any noticeable changes in their hearing abilities suggesting an interaction between the peripheral auditory system and central auditory processing. In a recent study, our team documented an attentional dysfunction linked to tinnitus in a large cohort of participants that deserves to be further studied with EEG recordings. For this purpose, we use rigorous, and cutting-edge behavioral and neuroimaging measures, that have never been used in tinnitus studies, to demonstrate the neurocognitive correlates of tinnitus. It is a collaborative project involving ENT specialists and researchers of the Hearing Institute (Institut de l’Audition, Paris 12) and the reconnect IHU (Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire). Internship objective: The student will be involved in an ongoing project aiming at advancing knowledge about the cognitive aspects and the electrophysiological markers associated with tinnitus. S/he should have an interest in attention modeling, electroencephalographic responses and statistics, in relation to auditory perception disorder but a background in these domains is not required. Place of training: The internship will take place at the Institut de l'Audition (rue de Charenton, Paris 12) and the student will be part of the NeuroSpeech team.