The clinical name of “ringing in the ears”, a ringing sound which actually is not there is referred as Tinnitus, affecting one in every five people although the degree varies from person to person.
Doctors and health experts believe that it is a symptom of a much larger condition and have been in a predicament as to why it is so difficult to treat. Identifying and understanding what may bring this out, integrated with a new research will obviously be of great assistance to get closer to attain that knowledge.
Researchers at the University of Iowa have engaged a technique which monitors the brain during the periods of tinnitus. This technique has helped in comparing stronger and weaker signals in the condition along with measuring notes against brain patterns observed in volunteers exposed to a sound which intentionally imitates the symptom.
Researcher William Sedley of Newcastle University said, “Perhaps the most remarkable finding was that activity directly linked to tinnitus was very extensive and spanned a large proportion of the part of the brain we measured from. In contrast, the brain responses to a sound we played that mimicked [the subject’s]tinnitus were localized to just a tiny area.”
The researchers have also suggested that not only does tinnitus fill the gaps of sound which goes missing following a hearing damage, but it also spreads damage to other areas of the brain.
The University of Iowa is an ideal place to conduct experiments on this phenomenon and according to the study this condition has the possibility of leading to anxiety, depression and anger. The upside is that pharmaceuticals, psychological counseling and sound therapy can be of aid for sufferers.
Phillip Gander, of the Department of Neurosurgery with the University of Iowa, argues, “This has profound implications for the understanding and treatment of tinnitus, as we now know it is not encoded like normal sound, and may not be treatable by just targeting a localized part of the hearing system.”
9 Comments
I suffer from tinnitus, explain this: not only do I have a ringing in my ears, I have about 10 different pitches of sounds I can hear with various depths and volumes. It can get so loud it wakes me out of deep. And on frequent occasions it will fluctuate from slow to fast like a metal bering bouncing off metal walls.
National Institutes of Health funding in the US has dropped for tinnitus research. Grant money is hard to find. The Georgetown University lab is is one of the premier research labs in the world in Tinnitus and they are scrambling for funds. While Iowa has some top investigators with an affiliated hospital, there has been no Manhattan project on this world-wide problem. Furthermore, tinnitus research does not have the political nor social force that HIV research had in the 1990’s to the present.
I know exactly what you mean. I have lived with this 40 years and some days it’s as if a high pitch concert is going on in my head; my hearing is to the point of not being able to talk on telephone and I avoid conversations if at all possible. It’s tough on a salesman to function with this condition.
Christopher,
You have explained my condition exactly. My sounds change with certain sounds in the environment. If I hammer for example and make a certain sound or ring, not loud, it changes the pitch of my tinnitus. I still sleep well however and I can tune it out so that I am not listening to it. I hope they can sort this out. It would be nice to hear silence again.
Interesting. I’ve had that constant buzzing/ringing my entire life. I hear it 24/7 although there are times it grows louder. I also have anxiety and anger issues, so this research is interesting. Thankfully, because I have always had this I thought it was normal and have adjusted. It isn’t a concern for me.
Why is “The University of Iowa is an ideal place to conduct experiments on this phenomenon?” Medical reporting non-sequitur or product placement?
I have suffered with tinnitus since 2007. For the first few months I thought I was going to lose my mind, I am now on anxiety and depression meds but the sound is always there and still bothers me. I have to sleep with the tv on to mask the noise otherwise I get no rest at all and even that bothers me. I am tired constantly and have terrible headaches and can not hear people and their conversations well. If there was a solution I would love to know about it and get my life back.
It is brain damage not auditory damage. The loud sound did not only hurt the ears, it damaged the brain’s aural centers.
I developed tinnitus when I started taking Effexor for social anxiety. It is constant, 24/7, and loud. The tone is always the same. I have learned to ignore it for the most part but there are moments when I think, if I don’t ignore this, it will drive me crazy.
The positive effects of the drug are great enough that I would choose to keep taking it even with the tinnitus. Besides, there is no guarantee that the noise would stop even if I did stop.