American Tinnitus Association Announces New Diagnostic Tool to Identify Tinnitus in Animals

I have read the article.
I do not understand what this method is. What makes it an objective measuring method?
When I think about objective I see equipment that is able to measure something. Not behaviour in animals.
Somebody else read the article and know what this tool is that supposable is developed?
 
All I could take away from that article is that animals can't talk, so the research team has devised a method based on behavioural science to diagnose tinnitus in animals. What does this tell about us human tinnitus sufferers? Do tinnitus patients have a special kind of behavior?

The article is obviously not aimed at the general public but researchers and doctors.
 
So nothing new. Behavior in animals has been used from the beginning in tinnitus research.
The article is obviously not aimed at the general public but researchers and doctors.
Don't underestimate general public;)
What also is important is drive and determination.
 
and this is from 2017 so its not old news ;D

Yes and no. Using behavioral paradigms like gap-detection is old news. These guys seem to have developed a new method that is supposedly more accurate or allows quicker assessments.
 
I know... it's all with the idea to help us humans which I appreciate but I do think about those rats and feel sorry for them. I wonder perhaps with T, they may not understand it and perceive it as an outside sound. Just trying to hope it's not horrible for them.
 
If behavioral studies can help detect tinnitus in animals, and it's painless, why are they not using it on humans? There are plenty of tinnitus sufferers who they could use this on. They could easily tell if it works or not. Instead of inducing tinnitus in animals just to see if they can detect it by their behavior. It seems far fetched to me, and plain stupid to be honest with you.
 
If behavioral studies can help detect tinnitus in animals, and it's painless, why are they not using it on humans? There are plenty of tinnitus sufferers who they could use this on. They could easily tell if it works or not. Instead of inducing tinnitus in animals just to see if they can detect it by their behavior. It seems far fetched to me, and plain stupid to be honest with you.
Your post makes no sense.

They get healthy animals, sedate them, and expose them to noise to induce T, and then they make experiments on the animals.
 
It seems like scientists are not genuinely interested in finding a way to detect and diagnose tinnitus in humans. They just want more play time.

They say that the majority of tinnitus cases are due to inner ear damage. Yet they don't have any non-invasive diagnostic tool to get intracochlear images at the cellular level to assess the damage. They rely on indirect assessment using standard hearing tests. Or using OAE and ABR tests at best. These tests are very much dependent on the interpretation, and they are not very objective. In that respect, hearing test is the worst of them! The OAE and ABR are not willingly offered.

Then you have these behavior based tests which are supposed to be painless, easily administered, and not expensive. Yet they don't use them?! Instead they intentionally inflict hearing damage on animals so that they develop tinnitus, then study their behavior. If this is such a great idea, why are they not using these tests on humans?

I understand they need animals to do drug testing on. But if these tests prove ineffective in humans, why would they be that much more effective or useful in animal models?
 
Animal studies have led nowhere
This is false, noise induced T caused by DCN hiperactivity (due to faulty Kv7.2/3 potassium channels) was discovered using animals, and consequently they created a new drug (RL648_81) to act on those channels, which is ready to start to the be used in animal trials.

I know... it's all with the idea to help us humans which I appreciate but I do think about those rats and feel sorry for them. I wonder perhaps with T, they may not understand it and perceive it as an outside sound. Just trying to hope it's not horrible for them.
It's very likely that they habituate 100% to the sound in a matter of weeks. Anyway animal experimentation is 100% needed to find treatments for humans.
 
This is false, noise induced T caused by DCN hiperactivity (due to faulty Kv7.2/3 potassium channels) was discovered using animals, and consequently they created a new drug (RL648_81) to act on those channels, which is ready to start to the be used in animal trials.

It's very likely that they habituate 100% to the sound in a matter of weeks. Anyway animal experimentation is 100% needed to find treatments for humans.

Animal testing it is then! :beeranimation:
 
Of course, it would help tremendously if they could crack the code of the human brain.

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They could then use neuromorphic computer chips,

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and supercomputer grids

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to run virtual drug simulations targeting specific brain problems.

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A lot of animal lives would be saved. We could reduce animal use for the final stages.

human-brain-project-launch.jpg


It may seem like science fiction, but a lot of this is either already been done or is under development. Imagine if it could take only days or hours to find a cure for something like tinnitus. Dare to dream the impossible!
 
We all dream the impossible everyday ;)

I agree! But it's not only because we as a group of people are desperately in need of a cure. It's essentially what makes us human! We have this urge to make the nature adapt to us, instead of us adapting to nature. For good and for worse!
 

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