As the COMT polymorphism is especially prominent in the prefrontal cortex and has been associated with auditory gating, we hypothesize that tinnitus patients with this polymorphism have altered activity in the ventromedial prefrontal/anterior cingulate areas that modulates the tinnitus percept. To test this, we recruited a total of 40 tinnitus subjects and 20 healthy controls for an EEG study. A comparison between tinnitus subjects and healthy controls and their frequency of being Val/Val genotype or Met carriers (including Val/Met and Met/Met genotype) shows no significant effect, suggesting that the distributions for the tinnitus and healthy groups are similar. Our results show that an interaction between the amount of hearing loss and the COMT Val158Met polymorphism can increase susceptibility to the clinical manifestation of tinnitus. We further demonstrate that the parahippocampus becomes involved in tinnitus in patients with hearing loss that are Met carriers. In these patients, the parahippocampus sends more tinnitus information to the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex and auditory cortex that is specifically related with increased loudness. At the same time, the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, which normally functions as a gatekeeper, is not cancelling this auditory information, ultimately leading to increased tinnitus loudness.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 02 June 2018.
All research outputs
#20,663,600
of 25,382,440 outputs
Outputs from Hearing Research
#1,393
of 1,752 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#267,264
of 342,877 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Hearing Research
#23
of 29 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,382,440 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 10th percentile – i.e., 10% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,752 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.7. This one is in the 10th percentile – i.e., 10% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 342,877 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 12th percentile – i.e., 12% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 29 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 13th percentile – i.e., 13% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
