TICS OF THE EAR—AUDITORY TICS
The muscles of the external ear come often into play. One of our patients had a tic of the left ear, consisting in visible elevation of the pinna. A case of tic of the ear muscles has been described by Romberg, and another by Bernhardt, in the distribution of the occipital and posterior auricular nerves. Reference is made by Seeligmüller[63] to a ten-year-old girl suffering from unceasing involuntary contractions of the eyelids and of various head and neck muscles, with wrinkling of the forehead and movements of the ears. His original diagnosis of chorea was discredited by his subsequently learning that the child, in common with a younger sister and a brother, had for several years been exercising herself by making faces, and in particular by attempting to move her ears.
It is quite conceivable that certain middle-ear phenomena are comparable to the tics. O. used often to complain of hearing noises in his right ear, which came and went with his tics of face and neck. Now, it is well known that the probable explanation of the humming sound attending forcible closure of the orbiculares palpebrarum is the variation in labyrinthine tension due to the synergic contraction of the stapedius. This absolutely normal effect may be exaggerated by predisposed and preoccupied individuals into a sort of auditory tic.