this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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It seems like it could be some kind of feedback loop where the false signalling is actually inducing a physical response that can be recorded under ideal conditions. At the end of the day, the eardrum is an audio transducer, and every other such device we know of can make "fake noise" by being pushed into an unstable state.
What is the mechanism for the ‘physical response’? Your proposition assumes that the eardrum or the cochlea have some kinda muscle that would vibrate them, which makes no sense and hasn't ever been a part of the ear anatomy.
Any organic motion detector is just a series of mechanical, chemical and electrical connections which translate the motion to nerve impulses. All these things can work backwards, although likely with much less efficiency. It's a reasonable theory that there's a path creating these sounds from tinnitus even if the original source is the brain nerve signals. Of course there's of other conflicting theories too. But it's hard to experiment to figure it out as we can't cut apart a functioning system to see what parts are doing what - well we probably could, but the ethics board might have a problem with that.
Nobody said it would have to be the cochlea or the eardrum specifically. Involuntary muscle contractions of the tensor tympani and stapedius muscles which are both connected to the ossicular chain of "hearing bones" inside your ear, for example, can generate audible sounds through involuntary contractions that change the tension of the eardrum. When processed by the auditory system, these contractions can be experienced as tinnitus. This is known as muscular tinnitus (https://dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/hearing/tinnitus/ME.html). So what I'm saying is, maybe there are other physical mechanisms of action that we didn't even think to look for until the physical sound was recorded from a case that was expected to be entirely neurological.
I'm not a medical professional, I just did some reading.