Vagus nerve stimulation paired with tones for tinnitus suppression: Effects on voice and hearing

摘要

In individuals with chronic tinnitus, our interest was to determine whether daily low‐level electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve paired with tones (paired‐VNS ) for tinnitus suppression had any adverse effects on motor‐speech production and physiological acoustics of sustained vowels. Similarly, we were also interested in evaluating for changes in pure‐tone thresholds, word‐recognition performance, and minimum‐masking levels. Both voice and hearing functions were measured repeatedly over a period of 1 year.