Assessing mindfulness-based cognitive therapy intervention for tinnitus using behavioural measures and structural MRI: a pilot study

Abstract

Objective: We used a minimally-modified version of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) to treat symptoms of distress associated with tinnitus.

Design: Audiological screening (establishing a baseline) was conducted prior to treatment and at three time-points: pre-intervention, post-intervention and follow-up, 8 weeks after completion of training. MRI tests were also conducted at these three time-points.

Study sample: Twenty-one participants were enrolled in the study, of whom 15 completed training and audiological testing and eight completed the MRI portion of the study.

Results: Scores on tinnitus-related questionnaires showed a significant decline either from pre- to post-intervention or from pre-intervention to follow-up, despite no significant change during baseline. Voxel-based morphometric analysis of the structural MRI scans revealed clusters in bilateral superior frontal gyrus that exhibited significant increases in grey matter volume over the period of intervention and follow-up. Further, grey matter changes in occipital and cingulate regions correlated with declines in tinnitus handicap.

Conclusions: This pilot study supports MBCT as an adequate approach for treating distressing tinnitus and suggests that neuroanatomical changes may reflect reductions in tinnitus-related severity. Although our small sample size precludes drawing strong conclusions, there is potential for assessing neuroanatomical changes due to mindfulness-based interventions in tinnitus.

Keywords:

• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
• tinnitus
• grey matter
• MRI
• voxel-based morphometry
• behavioural measures

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Anthony Tsao for assistance with behavioural data collection and Sara Schmidt for help with the MRI data acquisition. This product includes software developed by the Harvard Aging Brain Project (NIH-P01-AG036694), NIH-R01-AG027435, and The General Hospital Corp.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a Seed Grant from the Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education, Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, and College of Applied Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.