Dynamics of Tinnitus and Coordinated Reset Therapy

Since I do not understand much of a topic if it does not have Math in it, I did a bit of research on mathscinet and I found this rather recent paper (2019) by Jackson and Wiesenfeld (who is a top physicist at Georgia Tech), published in Physical Review E. Maybe it is of interest.

Abstract: A clinical study of tinnitus patients found promising results using a noninvasive therapy. We introduce a dynamical model to explore both the onset of tinnitus and the effects of coordinated reset therapy. Our model extends an existing theory of individual outer hair cell dynamics to include their mutual interaction, and consider show sustained activity can inhibit the natural recovery exhibited by normal (healthy) individuals. The model is investigated through numerical simulations and shows behavior broadly similar to that reported in the clinical study.

 

This looks very interesting. Can someone of our science knowledgeable people explain to us what kind of treatment this is? I don't understand

 

I didn't read it closely and I definitely don't understand the physics but my impressions:

What I don't like is that the subjects returned to baseline after the sound therapy was discontinued (even though temporary relief is nice) and the authors appear to be making the assumption that if they did it longer, they might have lasting effects. Might be true but it would have been nice to actually test that with a longer trial.

The concept of stimulating a healthy region adjacent to the tinnitus frequency is an interesting one. I think people who generally have good hearing and one of two areas of hearing/hair cell loss could benefit possibly by tricking the brain with similar frequencies.

They should definitely do long term studies, though, unless this intends to be a better wearable device for people.

 

@buttercake, when I was in college, I took two semesters of medical statistical study which was very difficult. Only two students enrolled per class. Final exams were six hours long or longer (breaks as needed) and we were allowed to use professor provided cheat sheets which didn't help much. I had to take Statistics I, II and advance statistics pre req, plus had to be a third year biology student. Statistics I and II was also needed for my finance/economics degree.

Any medical statistical model can be proven debatable by another model.

I have not read your article before, but I have read and studied a given reference which is:

Active hair-bundle motility harnesses noise to operate near an optimum of mechanosensitivity

After reading your article, I find it to be most interesting and from my limited level of medical statistical knowledge, I really like the article.

 

I agree. Still I find their description very interesting. In my understanding what they do is to describe the dynamics of hair cells with a dynamical system which thus obeys to a certain system of differential equations. For a certain choice of the parameters \beta and S the system displays an attractor, that seems to correspond to sustained activity in absence of stimuli (i.e. tinnitus). The therapy is meant to make the system evolve towards an 'healthy state', i.e. to make slowly change the parameters\beta and S so that the dynamical system is "pushed" towards an "healthy dynamical system", i.e. a dynamical system that does not have the "tinnitus attractor".

Actually in the caption of FIG. 8 they even say: "The evolution of S is slow enough to allow the persistence of tinnitus symptoms if the system has not moved into the stable parameter region."

Strangely enough, the paper does not have a single citation...

Yes! Nadrowski's model is indeed where these guys start from.

 

Actually this paper does not propose a treatment; rather, it does propose a mathematical model to describe the healthy and unhealthy behavior of hair cells and it tries to see if the model is somehow accurate by comparing numerical simulations with the outcomes of some previous clinical studies.

 

The paper seems to be part of Jackson's Ph.D dissertation. Very interesting.

Paging @Zugzug & @Chinmoku.