Nuances in intensity deviant asymmetric responses as a biomarker for tinnitus

Ekaterina A. Yukhnovich; Kai Alter; William Sedley

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0289062

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 20, 2023
7 May 2023 Decision Letter - Prashanth Prabhu, Editor PONE-D-23-06918Nuances in intensity deviant asymmetric responses as a biomarker for tinnitusPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Yukhnovich, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 21 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Sampling size can be increased for future investigation purposes. Although the current study failed to replicate the Intensity mismatch asymmetry as a marker of tinnitus status but the new findings are still useful. Reviewer #2: PONE-D-23-06918 Nuances in intensity deviant asymmetric responses as a biomarker for tinnitus Justification of sample size. Specify the age range of participant (both control and clinical group) What is the starting level of intensity of band pass noise in psychophysical assessment? How the psychophysical assessment performed in bilateral tinnitus. Provide the details of tinnitus pitch, center frequency of tinnitus of each participant. What is the duration of standard stimulus? The experimental design closely followed the paradigm used (1), with the exception of using a 1 kHz tone as the control condition - consider to rephrase The tones were presented isochronously to the ear(s) that the tinnitus participant indicated as the tinnitus ear(s), or the same ear(s) for their matched control (illustrate it with suitable example). In Method - ‘with chronic tinnitus for over 6 months’ and in results According to the THI, tinnitus was causing a slight problem to four participants, mild problem to seven participants, a moderate problem to two participants and a severe problem to one participant. - Conflicting statement and THI representation (27.29 (16.69)) in Table-2. Tinnitus duration ranged from 4 to 60 years and in table-2 the duration in years 21 (19.16) - check it. Mention the tinnitus frequency and edge frequency for each participant in a table.. There is a mismatch between Participant age, hearing loss pattern and tinnitus duration range. Do the participants in control groups are older adults,in audiogram it is observed that > 4 kHz above >25 >30 dB HL (Figure-1). Specify the ocular channel used in recording the EEG data. The mean dB difference between the loud and quiet stimuli was not significant between groups, however (Man U test, p =0.376) - Rephrase the sentence. Possible reasons for the findings are missing under each heading of the discussion section. ******* 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Archana Gupta Reviewer #2: Yes: Hemanth Narayan Shetty, Professor in Audiology, JSS ISH, Mysuru ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". 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Revision 1
22 Jun 2023 Author Response Dear editors, Thank you for reviewing our manuscript and providing constructive comments. I am very grateful for your time and suggestions. In this letter, I aim to address the issues brought up by the journal and the reviewers. Journal requirements: 1) “Funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript.” I have removed the funding section from the main manuscript file (line 493). I also included a funding statement in the cover letter. 2) “Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct.” I believe that my reference list is complete and does not include any retracted papers. Responses to reviewer 1: 1) “Sampling size can be increased for future investigation purposes.” Thank you for your comment! While the sample size could have been larger, we believe that it should have been sufficient to attempt replication of previous findings. I have added a statement about this to the manuscript (line 106): “The sample size was small largely because this study was seeking the kind of large and invariant effects indicated in the previous study”. Responses to reviewer 2: 1) “Justification of sample size” While the sample size could have been larger, we believe that it should have been sufficient to attempt replication of previous findings. I have added a statement about this to the manuscript (line 106): “The sample size was small largely because this study was seeking the kind of large and invariant effects indicated in the previous study”. 2) “Specify the age range of participant (both control and clinical group)” I have now put this information in Table 1 (line 226; tinnitus group range 20-80 and control group range 22-70) 3) “What is the starting level of intensity of band pass noise in psychophysical assessment?” I added this (line 134-136): “The intensity was based on an inverse Fourier transform of a Hanning spectrum noise, with peak amplitude at the centre frequency equal to 1. It was not a specific dB value, and it was always a relatively quiet stimulus which subjects needed to increase in intensity for the match.” 4) “How the psychophysical assessment performed in bilateral tinnitus.” I have added this on line 133: “In cases of bilateral tinnitus, the participants heard the sound in both ears, and could adjust the ear balance.” 5) “Provide the details of tinnitus pitch, center frequency of tinnitus of each participant.” I have now put this in as a supplemental table. 6) “What is the duration of standard stimulus?” 300 ms (line 171) 7) “The experimental design closely followed the paradigm used (1), with the exception of using a 1 kHz tone as the control condition - consider to rephrase” I have now changed this to “The experimental design closely followed the paradigm used in the original study (1), with the additional inclusion of a 1 kHz tone as a control condition.” (line 167) 8) “The tones were presented isochronously to the ear(s) that the tinnitus participant indicated as the tinnitus ear(s), or the same ear(s) for their matched control (illustrate it with suitable example).” I added “For example, if the participant with tinnitus only had tinnitus in their right ear, the matched control would also only hear the tones in their right ear.” (line 174). 9) “In Method - ‘with chronic tinnitus for over 6 months’ and in results according to the THI, tinnitus was causing a slight problem to four participants, mild problem to seven participants, a moderate problem to two participants and a severe problem to one participant. - Conflicting statement and THI representation (27.29 (16.69)) in Table-2.” This seems consistent to me; the largest frequency of participants scored between 18 and 36 (mild problem), which is reflected by the mean score being within this category also. I have included the ranges of category scores in the description (line 212): “According to the THI, tinnitus was causing a slight problem to four participants (<16 THI score), a mild problem to seven participants (18-36), a moderate problem to two participants (38-56) and a severe problem to one participant (58-76). Tinnitus duration ranged from 4 to 60 years. The duration was skewed to the left, so the mean (21) was lesser than could be expected in a normal distribution.” 10) “Tinnitus duration ranged from 4 to 60 years and in table-2 the duration in years 21 (19.16) - check it.” This is also accurate based on my data. I have included an explanation for this (line 214): “the duration was skewed to the left, so the mean is lesser than could be expected in a normal distribution”. 11) Mention the tinnitus frequency and edge frequency for each participant in a table. This is now in the supplemental table based on comment 5). 12) “There is a mismatch between Participant age, hearing loss pattern and tinnitus duration range. Do the participants in control groups are older adults, in audiogram it is observed that > 4 kHz above >25 >30 dB HL (Figure-1).” The figure is representative of the PTA results I saw, with many participants starting to have some hearing loss from 6 kHz. The largest tinnitus duration occurred in one of my oldest participants, who indicated that they developed tinnitus as a teenager. The age and hearing loss means, and overall distributions were not significantly different between groups (line 233). 13) Specify the ocular channel used in recording the EEG data. I have now included this (line 164): “No ocular channel was used as the standard EEG channels were sufficient for removing ocular artifacts”. 14) The mean dB difference between the loud and quiet stimuli was not significant between groups, however (Man U test, p =0.376) - Rephrase the sentence. Changed this to “Nonetheless, the mean dB difference between the loud and quiet stimuli was not significant between the tinnitus and control groups (Man U test, p =0.376).” (Line 250). 15) Possible reasons for the findings are missing under each heading of the discussion section. Thank you for the good suggestion. Upon further consideration, given that my discussion subsections are quite short, I am not sure that a summary at the beginning of each section would be needed, and I would prefer to avoid repetition. Thank you to the journal for considering this paper and to the reviewers for their comments! I hope this response is satisfactory to any concerns raised. Kind regards, Ekaterina Yukhnovich Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx* https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289062.r002
11 Jul 2023 Decision Letter - Prashanth Prabhu, Editor Nuances in intensity deviant asymmetric responses as a biomarker for tinnitus PONE-D-23-06918R1 Dear Dr. Yukhnovich, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Prashanth Prabhu Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289062.r003
Formally Accepted
27 Jul 2023 Acceptance Letter - Prashanth Prabhu, Editor PONE-D-23-06918R1 Nuances in intensity deviant asymmetric responses as a biomarker for tinnitus Dear Dr. Yukhnovich: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Prashanth Prabhu Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289062.r004

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