if you have tinnitus read this!

[versuviusx]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 185125.htm

ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2007) ? For the more than 50 million Americans who experience the phantom sounds of tinnitus -- ringing in the ears that can range from annoying to debilitating -- certain well-trained rats may be their best hope for finding relief.


Hearing impairment Researchers at the University at Buffalo have studied the condition for more than 10 years and have developed these animal models, which can "tell" the researchers if they are experiencing tinnitus.

These scientists now have received a $2.9 million five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the brain signals responsible for creating the phantom sounds, using the animal models, and to test potential therapies to quiet the noise.

The research will take place at the Center for Hearing and Deafness, part of the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences in the university's College of Arts and Sciences. Richard Salvi, Ph.D., director of the center, is principal investigator. Scientists from UB's Department of Nuclear Medicine and from Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo are major collaborators on portions of the project.

Tinnitus is caused by continued exposure to loud noise, by normal aging and, to a much lesser extent, as a side effect of taking certain anti-cancer drugs. It is a major concern in the military: 30 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans suffer from the condition.

"For many years it was thought that the buzzing or ringing sounds heard by people with tinnitus originated in the ear," Salvi said. "But by using positron emission tomography [known as PET scanning] to view the brain activity of people with tinnitus at UB, we've been able to show that these phantom auditory sensations originated somewhere in brain, not in the ear. That changed the whole research approach."

Salvi and colleagues discovered that when the brain's auditory cortex begins receiving diminished neural signals from the cochlea, the hearing organ, due to injury or age, the auditory cortex "turns up the volume," increasing weak neural signals from the cochlea. Increasing the volume of these weak signals may be experienced as the buzzing, ringing, or hissing characteristic of tinnitus. Currently there is no drug or treatment that can abolish these phantom sounds.

Over the past decade, Salvi's team has developed the animal models, allowing the researchers to explore the neurophysiological and biological mechanisms associated with tinnitus, the major focus of this new study. Ed Lobarinas, Ph.D., and Wei Sun, Ph.D., in the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, developed the models.

One of the major goals of the project is to try to identify the neural signature of tinnitus -- what aberrant pattern of neural activity in the auditory cortex is associated with the onset of tinnitus. In another study phase, the researchers will assess neural activity throughout the entire brain using a radioactive tracer, fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), which is taken up preferentially into regions of the brain that are highly active metabolically.

The third phase of the study involves the use of potential therapeutic drugs to suppress salicylate- or noise-induced tinnitus. In early studies, the researchers have been able to modulate some ion channels with one unique compound, and have been able to completely eliminate aspirin-induced tinnitus using the highest doses of the compound. This phase involves collaboration with scientists at NeuroSearch Pharmaceuticals in Denmark.

Adapted from materials provided by University at Buffalo.

[versuviusx]

why is this significant?
"For many years it was thought that the buzzing or ringing sounds heard by people with tinnitus originated in the ear,"
"But by using positron emission tomography [known as PET scanning] to view the brain activity of people with tinnitus at UB, we've been able to show that these phantom auditory sensations originated somewhere in brain, not in the ear.

so now tinnitus has just become a brain problem not an ear problem. that really sucks. as as the brain is way more fucking complicated than the ear.
i was hoping that they would come up with a quick fix in my lifetime. my tinnitus is only getting worse.


here is one more thing i got from the paper:
"Salvi and colleagues discovered that when the brain's auditory cortex begins receiving diminished neural signals from the cochlea, the hearing organ, due to injury or age, the auditory cortex "turns up the volume," increasing weak neural signals from the cochlea. Increasing the volume of these weak signals may be experienced as the buzzing, ringing, or hissing characteristic of tinnitus. Currently there is no drug or treatment that can abolish these phantom sounds. "

this would explain why i can hear a bird take a shit from a mile a way. if you can hear a bird take a shit from a mile a way you probably have a severe case of tinnitus.
from what i interpret here is what happening. your brain is getting a diminished signal and it is being amplified and over-acting to compensate. with the amplifcation you are getting more noise and and the buzzing much like turning up the gain on an amplifier or a mic pre to the max.
this would make sense. my ears are so bad i get annoyed just hearing people have a conversation. and when i go into a club i always wear ear plugs. in a bar i can't be there for long periods of time.
i really wish there was a cure.
i'm down for flying to denmark to get experimented on.

[Bryantx512]

I'm with ya on the cure. My tinnitus has gotten worse since we got a dog. She has this high pitched (centered somewhere around 3K), shrill, loud bark she likes to do right in my face with no warning. Think I may start wearing ear plugs around her as she's too much part of the family to get rid of.

[themagicmanmdt]

it's like having a noisy preamp tube in your brain!

[drumsound]

it's like having a noisy preamp tube in your brain!

It kinda is...

I do find this interesting. I hope they find a way to help that doesn't cause tons of other symptoms like so many other drugs on the market. Do you ever pay attention to the "possible side effects" on the drug comercials?

[philbo]

You mean the stuff like:
"May cause internal bleeding in the brain, liver failure, kidney damage, memory loss, birth defects and premature death involving excruciating pain and seizures"? Certainly no one would ever market and try to profit from drugs that do bad things, would they?

I've long suspected that brain physiology had a lot more to do with chronic tinnitus than cochlea damage (excluding the sort of tinnitus that results from somebody, for example, shooting a 10 Ga shotgun off right next to your ear). I get it from caffeine and from nicotine - within just a minute or two of taking it. IMHO, this is faster than the circulatory pathways into the ear can respond.
________
Starcraft Ii Replay

[majortom]

Thanks for this post, very encouraging news, while the brain is way more complicated than the ear it is a lot more forgiving. When the ear is damaged it's usually for good, the brain however can make new pathways and "heal".

My tinnitus started when I was just a small kid, I actually sed to make my mom put her ear next to mine to see if she could hear the ringing.

I'm curious, do any of you experience a change in pitch of the ringing when you clecnch you jaw??

I have this happen and it was the first thing long ago that made me suspect that there was more to this than simple hearing damage.

Thanks, Tom

[micyourbrain]

I've found that listening to a really smooth bassy sound like a sustaining synth patch is theraputic. I got this idea from some research I heard about doing something similar. Also wiggling my fingers in my ears helps some but I'm not sure why. Coffee and cigarettes makes it worse and beer makes me forget i have it

I have tinnitus and I'm only 21. Wear ear plugs. "Rock drums" can cause tinnitus, and other instruments are turned up to compete, add high wattage amplification usually blasting and it spells tinnitus. Someone might call you gay, but they don't realize that listening to live music usually contributes to hearing loss. A typical show hurts your ears. It's not a matter of being tough. I wish i had been wearing them since I started playing guitar when I was 16 and then I wouldn't have to hear this stupid noise all the time

On the plus side they'll probably figure this out in 5 years

[Brett Siler]

I found this on a site for home remedies that I frequent.

FLAX AND PSYLLIUM VERY PROMISING REMEDY!
Seetal from Brampton, Ontario writes, "i started taking ground flaxseed and psyllium husks 1-1 tsp mix together and mix in warm milk drink it quickly b/4 go to bed at night + glucosmine capsule 2 a day 1 in the morning 1 at night . i noticed my ears are not noisy any more. I had this problem for 10-12 years"

There are many other things on there people have done to cure their tinnitus. Here is a link if interested

www.earthclinic.com

[Seamonster]

....very encouraging news, while the brain is way more complicated than the ear it is a lot more forgiving. When the ear is damaged it's usually for good, the brain however can make new pathways and "heal".

Intriguing research. But it doesn't suggest that the problem is only or essentially in the brain: "Salvi and colleagues discovered that when the brain's auditory cortex begins receiving diminished neural signals from the cochlea, the hearing organ, due to injury or age, the auditory cortex "turns up the volume," increasing weak neural signals from the cochlea."

By the hypothesis, the brain behaves the way it does in response to damage in the cochlea. In doing this, the brain is already doing its "forgiving" thing, trying to compensate for the damage. It's like an auto-gain function, cranking louder to receive a compromised signal.

Who'd of thunk that the mini-disc recorder is more sophisticated than the brain -- at least you can turn off its AGC. (Damn, my brain is just so prosumer.)

I have a mild case. If I focus on it, it's there, but 99% of the time I don't notice it. I played *loud* in my 20's but since then I've been religious about wearing ear-plugs. I too can hear the mile-away shitbird. I've wondered to what extent my "sensitivity" has contributed to my being a better mixer/masterer (ironically) versus how much of any improvement has come from experience and forever learning how to listen better.

For me, the open question is: at what age does mild tinnitus and its associated "more sensitive" hearing devolve into the experience known as plain old hearing loss?

Welcome to yet another one of those mass social experiments we're running -- keyword earbuds -- along with slow-onset cell-phone brain cancer.....

HH

[Recycled_Brains]

you guys should check out this thread over at REP:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index. ... 723/15103/

i'm especially interested in the habituation concept that is presented.

mine can be nasty sometimes. i have severe environmental allergies (in and outdoor), and as a result my sinus's are very swollen all the time, which cause a lot of pressure in my ear canal, making the ringing much worse that it should be. i'm doing immunization therapy for the allergies, so hopefully in a year or so, things will get better. it can be depressing and hard to deal with. on a positive note, i took a hearing test a couple of months back, and they say that my hearing is "perfect".

-ryan

[ubertar]

So it sounds like a cure wouldn't improve your hearing any-- it might even make it worse. A real cure would fix your ears so they give a stronger signal to the brain, and the brain could then adjust back to normal. It's like the output from your mic got weaker, so you turned up the preamp to compensate, but the pre is noisy, so with more signal you get more noise. A "cure" like what they're talking about would probably just turn down the preamp-- not a great solution. What you need is to fix (or replace?) the mic. Then the pre gain can come down. The problem is still in the ears. They're not going to be able to make the brain into a cleaner preamp, all they can do (once they can, they can't yet) is turn it down.

[Marlowe]

I don't know how it can be ignored. It's like watching Little House On The Prairie with hardcore porn snippets flashing at the end. When I hear the list of side effects I always have a good laugh! I don't know who watches those commercials and chooses to take a pill to deal with their restless leg syndrome (?!) or to stop menstruating altogether (?!) deciding the side effects of liver failure, anal leakage and sudden death are workable.

Do you ever pay attention to the "possible side effects" on the drug comercials?