The Impact of Tinnitus on N-Back Performance in Normal Hearing Individuals.

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The Impact of Tinnitus on N-Back Performance in Normal Hearing Individuals.

J Am Acad Audiol. 2018 Feb 01;:

Authors: Waechter S, Hallendorf L, Malmstein E, Olsson A, Brännström KJ

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Tinnitus sufferers commonly report concentration difficulties. Despite several previous studies investigating this, the underlying cause and the role of hearing status remains unclear.
PURPOSE: To investigate whether there are any differences between normal hearing individuals with and without tinnitus in terms of working memory capacity, and whether working memory capacity correlates with high-frequency hearing thresholds.
RESEARCH DESIGN: Participants had their hearing thresholds measured (0.125-16 kHz) and performed a visual n-back test. All participants completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, in addition tinnitus participants filled out the Tinnitus Questionnaire.
STUDY SAMPLE: Sixty-two individuals participated, 31 had tinnitus (tinnitus group) and 31 did not have tinnitus (control group). Groups were age- and sex matched, and all participants had normal hearing thresholds (20 dB HL or better at 0.125-8 kHz).
DATA ANALYSIS: Friedman test of differences among repeated measures was conducted on the collected data of n-back performance, and Mann-Whitney U-test was used to compare groups. Age-corrected correlations were calculated for high-frequency hearing and each n-back condition.
RESULTS: We found no significant differences between the groups in terms of n-back task performances, except for the 2-back condition where the tinnitus group performed significantly better than the controls (p = 0.007). Furthermore, we found high-frequency hearing thresholds of the best ear (10-16 kHz) to correlate with performances at more demanding n-back conditions (p = 0.029 for 1-back and p = 0.015 for 2-back).
CONCLUSION: This suggests that presence of tinnitus might not imply poorer working memory capacity and that deteriorated high-frequency hearing thresholds.

PMID: 30461408 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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