New Treatment Approaches in Tinnitus: The Place of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Tinnitus is described as the perceived sensation of sound in the absence of acoustic stimulation. According to recent studies, it is one of the most common health problems disturbing patients in their daily lives. Al-though previous studies have focused more on the pe-ripheral features, such as inner ear pathologies, as the possible causes of tinnitus, accumulating evidence sug-gests that tinnitus is related to neuronal hyperexcitabil-ity in the auditory and non-auditory brain areas. Recent neuroscience research has shown that neuromodulation tools, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimula-tion (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimula-tion (tDCS), have promising effects in the treatment of tinnitus. However, the mechanisms of these observed positive effects are still far from being clear. The aim of this article is to review the pathophysiology of tinnitus and possible pathways of recovery by neuromodulation treatments and to summarize the results of recent ran-domized, controlled studies using tDCS and rTMS. Key Words: Tinnitus, rTMS, tDCS, neuromodulation Address for Correspondence