Systems and methods for treating hearing loss and/or tinnitus or enhancing hearing to sounds or sound features such as in a noisy environment are disclosed. An apparatus includes a hearing aid and associated electrodes for electrically stimulating a portion near, on or in the ear, where the electrical stimulation is synchronized with a sound input and/or sound output of the hearing aid.

Presented herein are techniques for providing tinnitus relief to recipients of a hearing prosthesis. In accordance with embodiments presented herein, a hearing prosthesis comprises a tinnitus relief system that is configured to generate a tinnitus masker signal that comprises a plurality of discrete (separate) components. The tinnitus relief system is configured to inject the components of the tinnitus masker signal directly into a sound processing path so that the masker components are combined with different processed portions of a channelized sound signal. The channelized sound signal and the components of the tinnitus masker signal are used to generate one or more output signals for use in compensation of a hearing loss of a recipient of the hearing prosthesis.

A system for providing multimodal stimulation to a user includes a tactile device including a set of tactile actuators. Additionally, the system can include and/or interface with a user device, a remote computing system, and/or any other devices. A method for multimodal stimulation functions to provide therapy to a user for tinnitus or other conditions, and includes any or all of: receiving a set of inputs; determining a set of outputs; providing the set of outputs to a user; and adjusting any or all of the set of outputs.

A hearing aid comprises a) an input transducer; b) an output transducer; c) an input buffer connected to the input transducer configured to store audio data representing one or more time segments of an electric input signal; d) an own voice detector for providing an own voice control signal, and e) a combiner allowing to insert audio data from the input buffer in a forward audio signal path. The hearing aid further comprises f) an input controller configured to control storage of a time segment of the electric input signal in dependence of said own voice control signal; and g) an output controller configured to select audio data from said one or more time segments of the electric input signal currently stored in the input buffer for insertion in the forward path in dependence of an output control signal originating from the user.

Generating, rendering and outputting one or more audio signals that have one or more audio sequences and/or spectral modulations of an audio file including a plurality of audio-based user prompts in an audio interference processing system. An audio interference processing system and method incudes initiating an instance of an audio interference processing session, configuring one or more session parameters, rendering/outputting a training audio output to one or more transducers, rendering/outputting one or more audio discrimination and audio navigation signals to the one or more transducers, receiving two or more sensor inputs in response to rendering/outputting one or more audio discrimination and audio navigation signals to the one or more transducers, processing the two or more sensor inputs, and providing a feedback output to a user via one or more modalities.

Electrical stimulation devices can be used to treat tinnitus. For example, tinnitus can be treated using implantable electrodes and stimulation devices for delivering electrical stimulation to a patient's cochlear region. Cochlear surface electrode(s), endosteal electrode(s), subendosteal electrode(s), intraosseous electrode(s), or short intracochlear electrode(s) (or a combination thereof), connected to existing or modified cochlear implant receiver/stimulator technology, can provide a successful model for long-term treatment of tinnitus in a large number of patients. In some cases, patients can simply turn on the tinnitus implant when experiencing troublesome tinnitus and gain instant relief.

A hearing aid system (100, 200) adapted for providing an enriched sound and a method of providing such an enriched sound.

A tinnitus masking system for use by a person having tinnitus The system comprises a sound delivery system having left and right ear-level audio delivery devices and is configured to deliver a masking sound to the person via the audio delivery devices such that the masking sound appears to originate from a virtual sound source location that substantially corresponds to the spatial location in 3D auditory space of the source of the tinnitus as perceived by the person. The masking sound being represented by left and right audio signals that are converted to audible sound by the respective audio delivery devices.

An apparatus for use in treating a neurological disorder of the auditory system, including a sound processing unit, an audio stimulation unit and a somatosensory stimulation unit. The audio stimulation unit includes an input for receiving the modified audio signal from the sound processing unit. The sound processing unit includes a processor operable to analyze an audio signal and generate a modified audio signal and a plurality of actuation signals therefrom representative of the audio signal. The somatosensory stimulation unit includes an array of stimulators to apply a somatosensory stimulation to a subject, and an input for receiving the plurality of actuation signals from the sound processing unit and directing individual actuation signals in a predetermined output for delivering an audio stimulation to the subject.

The present disclosure relates to a method for reducing a listener's task-irrelevant auditory perception, the method comprising providing a measuring device or system configured for measuring the listener's alpha, beta gamma and/or theta activity and providing a generation device or system configured for generating an alpha, beta, gamma and/or theta activity boosting signal that, when provided to the listener will increase the listener's ongoing alpha, beta, gamma and/or theta activity. The listener's alpha, beta, gamma and/or theta activity is measured and if the measured alpha, beta, gamma and/or theta activity is below a predefined threshold, the listener's ongoing alpha, beta, gamma and/or theta activity is increased by the provision of the alpha, beta, gamma and/or theta activity boosting signal to the listener. This results in the listener's ongoing alpha, beta, gamma and/or theta activity being increased, resulting in facilitating reduction of task-irrelevant auditory perception, such as the auditory perception of noise or tinnitus, and thereby also increasing the listener's ability to understand speech under adverse listening conditions. The present disclosure further suggests using the listener's measured alpha, beta, gamma and/or theta activity to judge if the listener is ready to understand speech, and if this is not the case to delay a speech signal until a sufficiently high activity is present.