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Millions of people across Britain suffer from it tinnitus A new path to relief may soon be found after promising new research. sound therapy,
Tinnitus is characterized by the perception of noises such as buzzing, humming, whispering or beating despite there being no external sound.
Researchers are optimistic that this innovative treatment could eventually be delivered through a smartphone app, making it widely accessible.
The therapy involves patients listening to modified sounds, a method designed to disrupt specific patterns of activity within the brain and effectively silence the intrusive ringing.
A trial involving 77 individuals was led and partly funded by Newcastle University RNNational charity for deaf people. Tinnitus can be triggered by a variety of factors, including hearing loss, certain medications, or mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.
Dr Will Sedley, consultant neurologist and researcher at Newcastle University, told the Press Association: “At the moment, there aren’t really very good treatments to get rid of the tinnitus sound, and it’s all about helping people get rid of it and learn to live better with the symptom.”
The researchers made small changes to synthetic musical notes for one group, while the other patients were given placebo sounds to listen to, which were modified at different frequencies.
The groups listened to sounds online for an hour a day for six weeks, before a three-week break.
They then listened for the next six weeks with the sounds swapped, although the patients did not know which sound was the placebo and which was the modified music sound.
Dr. Sedley said: “We came to analyze the data, and what we found is that, on average, people who were listening to the active during that phase, but not the placebo, had a substantial reduction in their tinnitus.”
The study found that the therapy calmed tinnitus by an average of about 10%, which lasted for about three weeks after treatment ended.
Dr Sedley said: “This could be done for everyday sounds like music, which is our later ambition.
“We did this with synthetic musical notes, but we subtly modify them, so that in the neurons that respond to sound pitches or frequencies close to tinnitus, we are activating them at slightly different times from each other, rather than all at once.”
While more study is needed, researchers are hopeful of further developing this therapy.
Dr Sedley told PA: “There are all sorts of different modifications we can make to sounds, or how long you listen to during the day.
“If we can normalize it, listening to music and talk radio, podcasts, people are doing that anyway, they can listen for hours and hours every day.
“One of the nice things is that if it works, it doesn’t require special hardware. It can be built into people’s normal, everyday lives and listening experience.
“So the hope is that, even if we can’t cure tinnitus, that we can find something that calms it down for quite a number of people living with it, just by doing things they might already be doing in their lives.
“And it doesn’t even have to be done or prescribed within a medical pathway or clinic. For example, they can just get an app, or log in to a website and really get started as quickly as they want.”
Dr. Sedley estimates that one in eight adults will develop persistent tinnitus, increasing to one in four in the elderly, and there are several theories about its causes.
He told PA: “One theory about what causes this is that when various cells in the auditory pathway, the brain cells, lose some of their input due to slight hearing loss, too much noise, or natural ageing, they automatically activate rather than being turned on and off by actual sounds as much as they should.
“And that spontaneous activity, they fire in rhythm with each other, so they all fire at the same time and stop at the same time.”
He compares this “synchronicity” to a crowd at a football match.
“What we’re doing is using sound to try to break up that synchrony, or force the neurons in that crowd to say things at different times, and if we can get them to do that, the brain will get less messages from them, and we’ll hear less tinnitus.”
Dr. Sedley said that potentially, anyone suffering from tinnitus could benefit from sound therapy, although he stressed that it is “early days.”
Ralph Holme, Research Director at RNID, said: “This is a hugely promising development when it comes to potential treatments for tinnitus – a condition that affects millions of people in the UK and for which there is currently no cure.
“Most current tinnitus treatments focus on learning to live with the condition and developing ways to manage it, which millions of people find extremely positive and helpful.
“However, this new method focuses on reducing sound and targeting the source of tinnitus perception.
“And because this therapy has the potential to be introduced relatively easily, in the future, people may access treatments with just a few swipes of their smartphone.”