The most mind-blowing moment, not only for De La Mata but the scientists too, came when they managed to actually record the sounds that she heard in her ears – which now appear as ‘Left Ear’ and ‘Right Ear’ which begin sides A and B on the album – and in doing so opened up questions about the nature of tinnitus itself. “The NHS definition is that it’s a phantom sound that your brain is creating, that it isn’t something ‘real’, so you should try to ignore it.” By having De La Mata place her ear into an anechoic chamber, with an ultra-sensitive microphone perched in her ear canal, they were able to provide significant evidence to the contrary. “After the first recording of it, it was ‘There’s no way, this isn’t possible.’” They tried again with her breath held, and again with her tensing her ears, and again with other members of staff, but each time it became apparent that yes, the noises De La Mata hears are seemingly something physical.
Utterly fascinating. I hope more research comes of this.
I wonder whether there might be a bidirectional connection between the ear and the brain. For example, the brain creates some internal activity, which in turn stimulates the more outer components of the auditory system.
I would assume this is completely standard. The ear doctor I went to, and that guy was noone "fancy", did this and that must have been more then 10 years ago.
In my experience, they're actually playing a super high frequency gradient and it's listening for the echo/feedback. It's how they do hearing tests on newborns too.
