A new report suggests tinnitus is caused by multiple areas of the brain, not just the part that perceives sound.

The study breaks with the traditional understanding of tinnitus, which says the condition is limited to tiny hair cells in the inner ear.

Researcher Phillip Gander said of the currently accepted theory: “We think it’s wrong, basically.”

Scientists at the University of Iowa studied the brain waves of a 50-year-old man.

They investigated his tinnitus using electrodes planted directly into his brain, which were placed there to reduce epileptic seizures (requiring a ten centimetre hole be cut in his skull to implant the electrodes).

The researchers used loud sounds to suppress the man’s tinnitus, and monitored the patient’s brain waves while his tinnitus was active and silenced.

This enabled the team to work out which brain waves were most associated with tinnitus.

The findings suggested that more of the brain might be involved in creating tinnitus that just the auditory complex.

“We found essentially that almost all the hearing parts of the brain are involved,” said Gander.

“Including a number of other areas of the brain related to processing emotion and memory and attention.”

The discovery might explain why the condition is so resistant to treatment.

“Maybe the reason tinnitus is so treatment-resistant is because it’s involved with so many parts of the brain,” Gander said.

“So any sort of treatment might not be able to knock out one area of that system. You might have to target all of them, which might be very difficult.”

The study is published in the journal Current Biology.