Tinnitus Suppression Following Placement of a Deep Brain Stimulation Electrode

One case of tinnitus suppression after implementation of a deep brain stimulation lead. The suppression seems to be related to an injury of a part of the brain (locus coeruleus) during the surgery. Not the first case report of tinnitus suppresion due to brain injury, but it suggests that neurosurgery has a good potential for a cure, using HIFU for example. The question is where in the brain as so many parts of the brain are involved in tinnitus (see here http://www.frontiersin.org/Systems_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnsys.2012.00015/full for example) and this might be different for any patient...


A stroke of silence: tinnitus suppression following placement of a deep brain stimulation electrode with infarction in area LC.

Abstract
The authors report on a case of tinnitus suppression following deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson disease. A perioperative focal vascular injury to area LC, a locus of the caudate at the junction of the head and body of the caudate nucleus, is believed to be the neuroanatomical correlate. A 56-year-old woman underwent surgery for implantation of a DBS lead in the subthalamic nucleus to treat medically refractory motor symptoms. She had comorbid tinnitus localized to both ears. The lead trajectory was adjacent to area LC. Shortly after surgery, she reported tinnitus suppression in both ears. Postoperative MRI showed focal hyperintensity of area LC on T2-weighted images. At 18 months, tinnitus localized to the ipsilateral ear remained completely silenced, and tinnitus localized to the contralateral ear was substantially suppressed due to left area LC injury. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of a discrete injury to area LC that resulted in bilateral tinnitus suppression. Clinicians treating patients with DBS may wish to include auditory phantom assessment as part of the neurological evaluation

 

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

 

This case was an involuntary suppression. There are documented experiments with deep brain stimulation against tinnitus with mixed results. As far as i know it is not done anymore.

 

What kind of operation do they perform at Brain2N clinic in Antwerp?
I thought Dr.De Ridder did DBS...

 

Extradural implants: electrodes sewn on the dura mater so not into the brain but on the brain. De Ridder did some DBS experiments long ago but the results were mitigated.

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/science-july-dec13-tinnitus_11-06/ I know this has probably been brought up already... But can someone explain to me how they were able to turn the volume up and down on tinnitus using a probe? And what is a probe and is this a good finding?

 

i saw the video in december, this is interesting indeed, the probe uses deep brain stimulation, it's used for parkinsons.

 

so is this experimental or are there some doctors who are alredy applying this technique?

thanks

 

it's a very accidental discovery so now studies have to take places, nothing of a treatment so far.

 

sounds like good news for the future at least... If they can get make some kind of small probe or magnetic thing to implant in the brain or something and leave it on lol idk im no doctor just guessin what could be used in the future...

 

Alleviation of Tinnitus With High-Frequency Stimulation of the Dorsal Cochlear Nucleus: A Rodent Study

 

I don't know how applicable to humans, but at least it seems to confirm DCN involvement in rodents. Given the results of human trials for DCN-related treatments (bi-mod), this confirmation of the "location" of T is encouraging.

More work is needed of course, but I take this as positive news.