Some speculation in this thread about the causes of tinnitus. There are several, including hearing loss, which (as someone here points out) possibly produces tinnitus in a manner similar to how limb loss can cause phantom limb pain. The nervous system isn't like plumbing, it's a tangled web of self-adjusting feedback loops. Once an input is severed, an area of the tangled web may lose an important calibrating input. Neurons don't emit "noise signals" (or "pain signals" or whatever) they just depolarise in response to stimulation, and altered calibration alters which neurons depolarise and how often. The frequency and number of certain neurons depolarising is experienced as noise (or pain or whatever) by the conscious human they belong to.
Good talk here[0] BUT BE WARNED, I recall* that there's a high-pitched squeal during this talk as a demonstration of what tinnitus is like for done people. It's extremely nasty especially if you're wearing headphones.
Incidentally, the self-adjusting feedback loop model helps explain why things like wiggling your jaw can alter the experience of tinnitus. Due to wiring issues, sensory input from muscles and joints can get mixed in with the auditory inputs. A similar mechanism (which isn't fully understood) helps explain why, for example, people having a heart attack can experience pain in the left arm. There's nothing wrong with the arm, the normal sensory signals from the arm are mixing with those from the heart.
Good talk here[0] BUT BE WARNED, I recall* that there's a high-pitched squeal during this talk as a demonstration of what tinnitus is like for done people. It's extremely nasty especially if you're wearing headphones.
Incidentally, the self-adjusting feedback loop model helps explain why things like wiggling your jaw can alter the experience of tinnitus. Due to wiring issues, sensory input from muscles and joints can get mixed in with the auditory inputs. A similar mechanism (which isn't fully understood) helps explain why, for example, people having a heart attack can experience pain in the left arm. There's nothing wrong with the arm, the normal sensory signals from the arm are mixing with those from the heart.
[0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=XGq3MXQlRJs
* Can't verify right now, trusting my memory.