RESEARCH ARTICLE Increased Frontal Response May Underlie Decreased Tinnitus Severity

Objectives The overall goal of the study was to identify functional and behavioral differences between individuals with higher tinnitus distress and individuals with lower tinnitus distress. Subse-quent exploratory analyses were conducted to investigate the role physical activity may have on the observed results between high and low distress groups. The purpose of the experi-ment was to identify brain regions to be targeted in future intervention studies for tinnitus. Design A total of 32 individuals with varying levels of tinnitus severity were recruited from the Urbana-Champaign area. Volunteers were divided into higher tinnitus distress (HD) and lower tinnitus distress (LD) groups. Note that these groups also significantly differed based on physical activity level and were subsequently stratified into higher and lower physical activity level subgroups for exploratory analysis. While in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, subjects listened to affective sounds classified as pleasant, neutral or unpleasant from the International Affective Digital Sounds database