Brain Regions Responsible for Tinnitus Distress and Loudness: A Resting-State fMRI Study

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0067778

According to a neuro doctor that I referred to in another thread today, he stated to me in the last half hour, that progress is now being made in these dated sections: Brain Regions Responsible for Loudness - The other Brain Regions Responsible for Tinnitus.

Folks, according to this neuro doctor that works in the same hospital as I did, who in a mentor for this study thinks that we may see a drug development within 2-3 years - on at least subjective T, then followed by clinical trials. There is high hopes to say bye bye to subjective T. New updates are expected later this year.

There are other related studies of the brain and tinnitus still in pre clinical studies. Hopefully a cure in 5-6 years.

 

Subjective tinnitus is also noise generated tinnitus as far as I understand right?

 

Subjective T can be caused by many things. About 95% of T is subjective and about 80% get some hearing loss caused by nerve and/or hair cell damage. Yes, head trauma or noise is often a cause.

 

I'm an optimist, but that seem rather impossible considering all the commercial requirements and things to fall together for a drug to even be considered. It might happen though . We already know of a Trobalt alternatives, but they may never see the inside of a pharmacy.

I really appreciate your post, some great work is being done out there. This all brings us closer to an effective treatment!

 

Too scientific to understand. And it's not new as i got it.
Still no drug...

 

@vermillion
It's indeed too scientific to understand sometimes. And that's just the complexity of T.
The main question is: in which way can we stop those electrical signals who can drive us mad?
As I see it and do not have medical/ scientific background, probably there never will be an answer to that question.

 

How original for tinnitus...

 

What do you mean?

 

I mean it would be a surprise if indeed there was an answer. Tinnitus will continue to be super resistant in treatments unless humans discover brain transplantation. We are fucked.

 

@vermillion
You already knew the answer before posting it... No new info, no drug

 

No we are not! And I really think that electrical stimulation of the brain will have a good chance of stopping these brain signals from going rogue. I just hope that they can come up with a good way to do this noninvasive when they can pinpoint exactly which areas to target. This study is another great step in the right direction.

By the way, for some, we already had treatments like trobalt and stem cells for others. In the first case it was that the drug had too many side-effects and they have to rework it to get less. In the second one, the medical community had not caught up to the science yet, but they will. You have NO idea just how big the cumulative effect will be in the collective research that is being done into tinnitus right now. I know it's frustrating, and it is for me too. But a cure / treatment is coming. It is Just a matter of when they can tie everything together.

 

Electrical stimulation to an already electrically overactive brain? Doesn't sound like a good idea!

Btw what's the deal with stem cells? @attheedgeofscience underwent two of those treatments and did find 50% relief. Isn't that something?

 

Agree on this. I am always thinking: we need 'de' stimulation on the brain instead of stimulation.
Don't know the right medical word for 'de' stimulation. De activation maybe?

 

Well it's not really stimulation of the brain. Sorry if that came out wrong. They are trying to repress the neurons from going haywire. So in a sense they are de stimulating the part of your brain where the problem is. When they can find the exact parts of the brain where it needs to be done.

 

if people want to see some proof at how close we are getting to a cure, just look at the amount of research papers that have been done on tinnitus in the last few years. Obviously and unfortunately it takes a little while to translate it into a cure, but a positive thing here is that the FDA just opened a super fast track. It is for diseases that we currently don't have a cure for yet. They will basically be able to shave off a few years for any new medicine to get through clinical trials, which is nice.

 

View figure #8 - right amygdala side far scull
view figure #9 left amygdala - right side far scull
right amygdala stimulation is needed
These areas are above the ears in the brain. See the orange arrow, click on that - permission is needed for copy. the above is the answer - I did not receive permission to share this.

Now how long will it take for a drug?

 

From viewing Supplementary figure #8 326-003 - right top picture of scull
and Supplementary figure #9 326-003 right top picture of scull

all we need now is a drug and the FDA will fast track any trials.
Temporal lobes - limbic - emotional reactions - so Jastereboff was right long ago

 

Techniques such as RTMS can be used to increase or reduce brain activity depending on the frequency used.

 

Yes. Stimulation doesn't always mean 'activating more'.

 

I think that there's some confusion about brain stimulation. There's has been many clinical trials using device stimulation techniques. Some studies have had poor results and other's moderate. Neuro surgeons believe that those with a borderline personality do not have success with device stimulation.

My thread is about brain simulation ( a new needed combo drug) that will help stimulation of blood control within the brain maybe with psychochemical agents according to a neuro surgeon that has involvement in one of these studies. The scans provided show the exact parts of the brain where tinnitus is centered per brain activity. A full connection was made just months ago. There's three studies currently involved in these studies. The amygdala region has been known for sometime as a connection of brain processing per tinnitus, but not two others parts of the brain shown within these scans.

On a recent thread about nightmares, those with borderline personality have nightmares more than any other personality group. They often see things as black or white. We all have borderline personality and paranoia from time to time.

 

The EMA can approve faster than the FDA. The EMA will grant approval in 210 days compared to 500 days for the FDA. Even with new FDA fast track, the FDA often has very long delays by sending questions back to the developers. This is often the case with many bio tech companies such as Exelixis who had cancer drug treatment going for years and then rejected. The CEO of EXEL - said up yours, as he didn't follow supposed protocol. He resubmitted and two major cancer drugs were approved as first and second line treatments. Before that they could only be used as off-label treatment.

I hope that drug development and trials will take place in Europe.

 

This pre clinical study which has registration with the government health association of Japan has found three areas responsible for electrons that fire signals that cause ringing in the ears. Scans are in a post above in post #16, where one would have to click on a small orange arrow to see scan results. This is not a stem cell study for hearing. Recently someone posted a study from the BBC pointing to 40 areas of the brain with a modeled scan showing those 40 areas of the brain responsible for electron firing for ringing in the ears.

Since then, both these groups have shared research and concluded that only 3 mentioned areas in post #16 on this thread may need drug treatment to stop the ringing. Cal Poly provided the scans. MIT has also played a major role in thinking that only these three areas may be needed to stop the ringing. MIT is well aware that electronic magnetic hypersensitivity is involved in these three exact areas of the brain. 50% of people in the industrial areas of the world have some electrical electron ion hypersensitivity. Most do not have medical problems from having this condition.

It's not known yet, but these connections may have large possibilities in finding a drug to stop the ringing. Is dirty electrical magnetic hypersensitivity (which can be treated) a road to tinnitus for some, where others who have been exposed to noise don't get tinnitus. There are many sites available that show many with severe EMS have ringing in the ears. This is known research, but connecting this to the same areas of brain with electron firing (tinnitus) may be a connection of treating ear ringing never before realized.

To note: I did not write this post. It's the words from someone with neuro science knowledge who often reads postings associated with this site.

 

Thank you for that post. It was very informative.

 

This makes me excited more than any possible inner ear hair cell/synapse regeneration treatment does. I would prefer having my tuning out system repaired first to prevent the T coming again after even a little acoustic trauma which we can be subjected to very easily in big cities everyday.However, for people with moderate/severe hearing impairment, I believe they are equally vital.

 

Drug development averages 12 years at best. Rigorous testing is done to ensure side effects are covered. Basically, it is damn expensive, we're talking 2-3 billion $, so that drug gotta have serious commercial value.

 

My posts in this tread shows that researchers are optimistic per the scans to find a drug, but drug development and clinical trials may take longer than what the clinical world has expressed.

 

Just an article I wanted to share, saw it being posted by Frontiers in Neuroscience on twitter

Increased Resting-State Cerebellar-Cerebral Functional Connectivity Underlying Chronic Tinnitus
Yuan Feng, Yu-Chen Chen, Han Lv, Wenqing Xia, Cun-Nan Mao, Fan Bo, Huiyou Chen, Jin-Jing Xu, Xindao Yin
Front. Aging Neurosci., 05 March 2018

Purpose: Chronic subjective tinnitus may arise from aberrant functional coupling between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex. To explore this hypothesis, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to illuminate the functional connectivity network of the cerebellar regions in chronic tinnitus patients and controls.

Methods: Resting-state fMRI scans were obtained from 28 chronic tinnitus patients and 29 healthy controls (well matched for age, sex and education) in this study. Cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity was characterized using a seed-based whole-brain correlation method. The resulting cerebellar functional connectivity measures were correlated with each clinical tinnitus characteristic.

Results: Chronic tinnitus patients demonstrated increased functional connectivity between the cerebellum and several cerebral regions, including the superior temporal gyrus (STG), parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), inferior occipital gyrus (IOG), and precentral gyrus. The enhanced functional connectivity between the left cerebellar Lobule VIIb and the right STG was positively correlated with the Tinnitus Handicap Questionnaires (THQ) score (r = 0.577, p = 0.004). Furthermore, the increased functional connectivity between the cerebellar vermis and the right STG was also associated with the THQ score (r= 0.432, p = 0.039).

Conclusions: Chronic tinnitus patients have greater cerebellar functional connectivity to certain cerebral brain regions which is associated with specific tinnitus characteristics. Resting-state cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity disturbances may play a pivotal role in neuropathological features of tinnitus.

 

The part that interests me about this article:
"Interestingly, direct electrical stimulation in the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus ameliorated the loudness symptoms of tinnitus in some subjects [51]. The caudate nucleus, a striatal center for sensorimotor integration, is also the potential target of direct electrical stimulation for the treatment of tinnitus. It is reported that direct electrical stimulation in the caudate nucleus modified tinnitus loudness [52], [53]."

It may not be known at this point, but at least that's a lead.

 

Hi..I'm fairly new to this nightmare called T and I admit that I haven't studied the hundreds of threads and pages in this section of the forum...
I was captivated by this thread title however and feel the need to respond.
I appologize in advance if my opinion seems too simplistic, or if it has already been discussed in previous threads but here is my basic idea:

These days science has the ability to target specific parts of our bodies with almost pinpoint accuracy (erection pills etc)...even in the 60's, they did bunch of experiments (for example the military tested a drug that will only make you see in black and white..etc)
My point being is, that why can't someone just develope a drug that targets the whole auditory system including the part of brain that interprets the auditory signals (sort of a scatter gun approach, since we still dont know exactly where along the path this T monster lives) and then fine-tune it from there?
Personally, I wouldn't mind taking a pill that makes me half deaf overnite if it helps me sleep?
Is this kind of the similar idea already being discussed here, or em I completelly off topic here?

 

Well you gotta remember that viagra was meant to be angina drug at first, but then they discovered the side-effect which was erection.

The thing is that the more I've paid attention to the medical field since T, the more I've learn that doctors and such really don't know everything and one drug can be used for many different medical conditions, they're not actually sure how the drug works, but it does, so let's use it.