Abstract
Tinnitus is the perception of sound with no external stimulus. Synaptic plasticity in auditory and non-auditory systems may contribute to tinnitus. Normally an "inhibitory gating" mechanism stops unnecessary auditory information reaching the auditory cortex; in tinnitus this is non-functional. The hippocampus (HPC) has direct connections with the auditory cortex and may be important in this mechanism. This study aimed to investigate, in a rat model, how hippocampal synaptic plasticity is involved in tinnitus perception by measuring long-term potentiation (LTP) in the HPC.