Cognitive Memory Comparison Between Tinnitus and Normal Cases Using Event-Related Potentials

About 20 percent of people above 60 years old suffer from tinnitus though no definitive treatment has been found for it. Evaluation of electrical brain activity using Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) is one of the methods to investigate the underlying reasons of tinnitus perception. Previous studies using ERPs suggest that the precognitive memory in tinnitus groups is negatively affected in comparison to the normal hearing groups. In this study, cognitive memory has been assessed using visual and auditory P300 response with oddball paradigm. Fifteen chronic tinnitus subjects and six normal hearing subjects participated in the experiment. T-test with significance level of 0.05 was applied on amplitude and latency of auditory and visual P300 for all electroencephalography (EEG) channels separately to compare tinnitus and normal hearing groups where the tinnitus group showed meaningful lower amplitude of auditory P300 peak in three EEG channels.