this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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I've always learned it comes from damaged hair cells inside the ear, how could it be anything but physical? Very surprised it can be picked up with a microphone in an anechoic chamber though
I have a kind of tinnitus that comes and goes based on how stressed out the tendons in my neck and jaw are, on one side, after a pretty serious physical injury.
I can basically massage away my tinnitus a good deal of the time, its only on the side that got fucked up.
Beyond that, I actually have exceptionally good hearing (for my age at least), and I often hear things other people don't even notice, yay autism!
Poorly shielded electronic devices go ~~BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT~~ EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Poorly shielded inductors in switch mode PSUs/old CRTs for me (Very common in older devices, low current causes the switching frequency to drop into the audible range.)
You can build your own tinnitus inducer with a cheapo 100kHz buck ic, put an air coil inductor on it, and then decrease the current until failure.
It's called objective tinnitus. Tinnitus can have different causes, the damaged hair cells one is the most common.
I was with you until: "[...] but it can also be heard by the examiner (eg, by placing a stethoscope over the patient's external auditory canal)." and now I'm even more confused
The sound? Well, ultimately sounds are just those hairs and your cochlea and eardrum and all that getting hit by vibrations in the air and sending signals to your brain which get interpreted; damage the equipment so it sends signals even when there's no vibrations in the air hitting it, and you have your non-physical sound. Same way phantom limb syndrome works.
However what if the damage doesn't cause signals in the absence of sound? What if tinnitus is actually the cochlea itself (or something/s in the apparatus anyway) physically vibrating and producing that whining sound? Like a mosquito's wings beating.
Makes sense, and I've also read it's very hard to study as well. Different causes with the same perceived sound sounds like a diagnostic nightmare
Why would a damaged hair cell make noise?
Because they're broken
They're screaming
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Somebody much smarter than me will be able provide answers!