Studies from independent labs demonstrated alterations in CN neural activity that were correlated with tinnitus behavior but not with changes in auditory brain stem response (ABR) thresholds or supra threshold ABR wave-1 amplitude (i.e., ABR responses to increasing levels of intensity) (Li et al., 2015; Wu et al., 2016).
References: 1) Li S, Kalappa BI, Tzounopoulos T. Noise-induced plasticity of KCNQ2/3 and HCN channels underlies vulnerability and resilience to tinnitus. Elife. 2015 Aug 27;4:e07242. doi: 10.7554/eLife.07242. PMID: 26312501; PMCID: PMC4592936. 2) Wu C, Martel DT, Shore SE. Increased Synchrony and Bursting of Dorsal Cochlear Nucleus Fusiform Cells Correlate with Tinnitus. J Neurosci. 2016 Feb 10;36(6):2068-73. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3960-15.2016. PMID: 26865628; PMCID: PMC4748084.