Novel therapy helped rats suffering from tinnitus, reports New Scientist.
Tinnitus is the phenomenon of perceiving sounds in the absence of acoustic stimuli. This exhausting ailment affects millions of people around the world. Most people experience it at some point in their lives, but in 5 percent of the total population, the condition becomes chronic and particularly troublesome. It can interfere with daily activities, cause balance disorders, insomnia and depression.
Tinnitus can occur as: ringing, thud, whistling, buzzing, hissing or hissing. They occur in almost all ear conditions, they can appear after a head injury or noise-related injuries. The most common cause is damage to the auditory nerve endings in the inner ear. Tinnitus is also caused by allergies, the presence of a tumor, diabetes, problems with the thyroid gland, circulatory disorders due to too high or too low blood pressure, or the use of certain medications (e.g. aspirin).
Tinnitus is thought to be caused by the reorganization of the brain’s auditory cortex – too many cells respond to sounds of a certain frequency. Navzer Engineer from the University of Texas in Dallas drew conclusions from this theory – he decided to reorganize the cerebral cortex again.
The researchers reproduced tones at different frequencies for the rats – except the one that caused tinnitus. At the same time, their vagus nerve was stimulated, the activity of which influences the plasticity of the brain. The process was repeated 300 times a day. After 18 days, the rats showed significantly less tinnitus activity. This effect lasted for three weeks. The second group of rats undergoing sham therapy did not change their behavior.
Currently, the Engineer team is working on treating people with a similar method. (PAP)