Abstract #0319

Schnfeldt-Lecuona C, Liener K, Bachor E, Wunderlich A, Freund W

To investigate anomalities in brain activation as underlying cause for tinnitus, we scanned 17 tinnitus patients and 9 normal hearing controls with fMRI. Five beeps per second, each 50 ms in duration, at three frequencies (3 kHz 2%) and silence were presented blockwise pseudorandomly distributed by calibrated headphones above MR acoustic noise level. Subjects attention was focused to the tones with a tone decision task. Data were analysed using SPM99. The tinnitus group showed prefrontal activation which was not detectable in controls. Random effect analysis between both groups revealed subcortical areas to be activated in patients superior to controls.