Tinnitus is a well-known pathological entity in clinical practice. However, the pathophysiological mechanisms behind tinnitus seem to be elusive and cannot provide a comprehensive understanding of its pathogenesis and clinical manifestations. Hence, in the present study, we explore the mathematical model of ions’ quantum tunneling to propose an original pathophysiological mechanism for the sensation of tinnitus. The present model focuses on two major aspects: The first aspect is the ability of ions, including sodium, potassium, and calcium, to depolarize the membrane potential of inner hair cells and the neurons of the auditory pathway. This membrane depolarization is induced via the quantum tunneling of ions through closed voltage-gated channels. The state of membrane depolarization can be a state of hyper-excitability or hypo-excitability, depending on the degree of depolarization. Both of these states aid in understanding the pathophysiology of tinnitus. The second aspect is the quantum tunneling signals between the demyelinated neurons of the auditory pathway. These signals are mediated via the quantum tunneling of potassium ions, which exit to the extracellular fluid during an action potential event. These quantum signals can be viewed as a “quantum synapse” between neurons. The formation of quantum synapses results in hyper-excitability among the demyelinated neurons of the auditory pathway. Both of these aspects augment and amplify the electrical signals in the auditory pathway and result in a loss of the spatiotemporal fidelity of sound signals going to the brain centers. The brain interprets this hyper-excitability and loss of spatiotemporal fidelity as tinnitus. Herein, we show mathematically that the quantum tunneling of ions can depolarize the membrane potential of the inner hair cells and neurons of the auditory pathway. Moreover, we calculate the probability of action potential induction in the neurons of the auditory pathway generated by the quantum tunneling signals of potassium ions.

An optical model analysis is performed for deuteron-induced elastic scattering on light nuclei from ³ He to ¹⁶ O over an extended energy range from 10 to 270 MeV. The aim of this study is to perform systematic local optical-model analysis of differential elastic scattering data and to compare the results with those obtained from widely used global parameterizations. Experimental angular distributions are extracted from the EXFOR database and analyzed within a Woods-Saxon potential framework, with particular attention given to the systematic behavior of optical-model parameters for different target masses and energies. Absorption mechanisms have been studied varying the role of surface and volume components in the imaginary potential. A spin–orbit term was included in the calculations using standard fixed parameters in order to maintain consistency with conventional optical-model descriptions; however, no attempt was made to extract systematics of the spin–orbit interaction due to the limited sensitivity of elastic scattering data without polarization observables, revealing a systematic transition from surface-dominated absorption in light and cluster-like nuclei—driven by deuteron breakup—to increasingly volume-dominated absorption for heavier systems. Volume integrals of both the volume and surface imaginary components, together with reaction cross sections, were calculated to assess the consistency and stability of the fitted potentials and to examine systematic trends. Comparisons to global optical-model potentials show that global models give a reasonable reproduction of the average behavior at forward angles, but often deviate at intermediate and backward angles, with the local fits generally providing better agreement with the angular distributions. These results underline the importance of localized analyses for deuteron elastic scattering on light nuclei and allow for a quantitative and systematic assessment of the applicability of global optical potentials in this mass region.