Need Help with My Neuron/Cell Theory for Tinnitus

Note: I am in no way a biologist, scientist, or anything of the sort, just working on an idea with ideas and probably some incorrect ideas and/or beliefs. Most of this stuff is just from talking with a friend who is a student and doing amateur studying so take it with a grain of salt. Don't take anything here as absolute fact.

Okay, so I am talking over with my friend who is a student in biology and he said that a lot of cells in the brain (maybe other parts to) like to be at at a resting potential at -70 millivolts. The cell tries to maintain this homeostasis according to what I understand. I am not sure yet what causes the cell to be at -70 millivolts to start with. My friend said it was negative chloride ions but I don't think that is the whole story. If anyone can shed the light on this, it would be very helpful. Once the cell goes above a certain voltage threshold it fires an "action potential". Where it says -70 on the graph is -70mv.


Source: Wikipedia

Some of the ions that make the cell more "positive" than negative 70mv are the following ions. I assume in a healthy cell after this action potential is "fired" the cell gives off ions to make it around -70mv again after a few milliseconds. There are probably others but I figured I would start with these:

Na+ (Sodium)
K+ (Potassium)
Ca+ (Calcium)

One of the ions that make it more negative is
Cl- (Chloride)

My idea is that in certain types of tinnitus, these cells are not working right to maintain the resting potential of -70mv. In some, I believe certain cellular neurons are overexcited and that is why in some people benzodiazipines calm them down by sending more negative chloride into the cell to make it more negative. Some others are helped by Potassium Channel Openers like Trobalt which I believe send K+ (potassium ions) out of the cell and make it more negative. (This is basic I know..not meant to be exactly detailed).
Some are helped by Sodium Channel blockers or Calcium Blockers which cause less calcium and sodium to enter the cell which would otherwise make the neuron cell more positive.

On the flip side, what if underactivated neurons affected tinnitus? My mom took a benzo before and it gave her temporary tinnitus!! (Worth looking into) Secondly, this does not count for all types of tinnitus, but I am just trying to understand why benzos and trobalt work for some people with tinnitus. What do you all think? Please critique this.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resting_potential


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_potential#/media/File:Basis_of_Membrane_Potential2.png

The main problem with this, is that even if this was somewhat true, we do not have targeted enough medicine to only work on the cells that are damaged. (at least that I know of) In addition, we need neurons to get excited and fire their action potentials because otherwise it would lead to death and/or serious, serious problems. Only a doctor or scientist could really try to help. I may not really know what the heck I am talking about so I want to get feedback.

 

OK...you wanted feedback...you don't know what the heck you are talking about. But if interested dive into the medical literature and attempt to learn more. I believe you will find the more you learn, the more you don't know.

As you correctly state, there maybe meds currently available that reduce the so called aberrant firing of neurons that create tinnitus and directionally reduce it. But there maybe sweeping cognitive deficits created as a result because a given med can't differentiate specific neurons that cause auditory disturbance.

Meanwhile we hope the smartest minds from MIT have tinnitus someplace on their list of disorders to solve.

 

Thanks for the feedback! I completely agree with your second paragraph. Maybe I didn't state it clearly enough above though. Can you be more specific with the first sentence though? I really want to understand things better.

 

I want to add only "CERTAIN CELLS" are involved in some people's tinnitus, NOT all cells

 

I can't do the subject justice honestly. You need to dive into the medical literature or go to medical school if you want to take a deep dive. A ton of research is being done with brain mapping and even attempts to reverse engineer the human brain to create a higher functioning mechanical version. To me, the implications are staggering to mankind. We won't solve all disease with our current IQ in my opinion. I believe AI and super computers will change everything however and also introduce daunting challenges.

Here is a brilliant guy from MIT who is a renowned futurist who talks about the bridge to immortality...three legs to living hundreds of years. Young people today have a genuine shot.

Futurist on living forever

 

The further they come the more ethical questions come to life which will eventually slow down the research.
Thing is if we can grow arms and legs, we can not only cure people but make them better. Is that what we want critics say.

 

Absolutely. We are already there with stem cell research and designing perfect babies through genetic altering. What kind of society do we want? The future is going to be unbelievable complex with so many options. Take tinnitus. Let's say through better understanding of genetics, a marker is found that sets up people for tinnitus based upon a certain sound threshold based upon time. This could be part of the map that is changed for future generations. How about growing a new cochlea with full hair count in a laboratory and implanting it? Human organs are already starting to be grown. We have hardly begun to scratch the surface. Disease will be erased through genetics and managed much less symptomatically with meds which is only a band aid.

 

It's incredible the immensely miniaturized actions that take place in already such incredibly tiny structures in our body/brain. I wish I had the ability to understand all the terminology and what not. Funny I say that because I may just have to learn all about this stuff since I trying to head into Neuroscience/hearing for the future. Trying to give my input into what's going on with everyone's hearing.

Is your end goal to try and "get rid" of your ringing, Jason? Do you have any idea what caused your ringing in the first place? Did you have ringing before this ringing?

 

What I want to know is why the U.S. (where I am from doesn't have a faster supercomputer by now. Right now 9/22/16, the Chinese supercomputer can process way more PFLOPS. Either way, what would be great is if they set a supercomputer up as a brain and figured some stuff out. Health is more important than nuclear ballistics.

 

The main thing that caused my ringing was when I took too much antidepressants and supplements one time when I was extremely depressed. I did it for a few days until I realized I had overdosed. My brain was so screwed up I could not talk a sentence without thinking each word individually. My brain was tingling, I got ringing in the ears...very scary situation, I was so miserable it was unreal. I then prayed about what I should do and a thought came into my head a few minutes later to take tylenol. About 5 minutes or so after taking tylenol it was like a light switched and I was ecstatic. The ringing turned into music though. It turned into my friend's cell phone ring tone that I had heard during the previous week. I can't remember how long that lasted. Anyways, a lot of it seemed to go away except for a whistle which didn't bother me that much because I was on an SSRI at the time and I thought once I got off it, it would go away. Well, I found out it did not. For months afterwards I got off the SSRI, I started feeling better and better but now needed a fan at night to help with the tinnitus. It seemed to be a little louder although it could have been that the SSRI just numbed me out to it. I will tell you that when I combined fish oil with the SSRI about a week later my T got extremely loud and I had to get off the fish oil. Anyways, I was taking flaxseed for a while, things seemed to be going well and when a spike hit I would take a klonopin and it would go down and everything was okay.

Well, later on I went through a very stressful period and my tinnitus started bothering me very much. I might have made it even louder or at least it seemed that way. Finally, I got on klonopin daily and things went fine for a couple of years and then slowly it seemed to be getting louder and once I hit a bad depression, the T seemed to get louder, I took a klonopin and it did not lower the T and I got so depressed it was unreal. Since then I have been having a very bad time with it except for brief periods of time last year and this year I actually had it go down sometimes. I got hearing aids with maskers which helped a lot but unfortunately, my ringing is not maskable.

Right now, I hope to lower my T to where I don't notice it during the day. I guess I will see what happens. I am on 3 anticonvulsants now but one is about to be switched with another. If things get real, real bad, I might have to get on an SSRI again which I do not like. I guess I will see. I have a couple of ideas though to try.

Honestly, I think mine is due to neuron damage mostly. I think certain neurons are damaged and not working right. I could be wrong but that is my thought at this point. The brain is amazing. There are some good videos on youtube about it.

 

The first thing I always say to myself now when I see someone stating depression, antidepressants, and tinnitus is why did a disorder like such happen in the first place. How old were you when you first started feeling "depressed" and did any other physical symptoms come along with it. Or were you just feeling hopeless in your life at the time?

I agree with damage of the neurons or even more so damage of the CNS. How do you feel when listening to music now? Have you ever felt emotional from music? Is noise metallic/distorted to you at all? Or have you ever had trouble processing a conversation when in a noisy area?

 

Fortunately no problem with understanding conversation or distortion of music. However, as time went on, I was having problems understanding voices on the TV due to the ringing and some hearing loss when there was background music and had to turn the tv up. Finally, I had to get hearing aids.

 

So you noticed loud ringing for the first time ever only after taking an antidepressant medication? Then things continued to get worse off and on?

 

After the combination of too much anti depressants and supplements I got ringing, then later music in my ear, and then ringing..it seemed the ringing went down though at least in my mind but when I got off the SSRI anti depressant I was on, it seemed to get louder. The one time it got very loud when I was on the SSRI was when I took fish oil with it for a couple of weeks. For some reason my tinnitus got extremely loud. Once I got off, the T seemed to go back down. I took flaxseed oil and was able to use it to get off the SSRI. My best was when I was on 4 flaxseed softgels a day in the afternoon with food, preferably a carbohydrate. The T seemed a little bit louder with flaxseed but I didn't care because I felt so much better on the flaxseed oil than the SSRI. On the rare ocassion of a flare up with T I used klonopin. My safety net in my mind was to get on the SSRI again if anything got really bad. Well, I thought the flaxseed was causing a side effect I didn't like so I did less and then less and then finally, the floor dropped out and I got seriously depressed. At that point, it seemed like my T got louder than usual. I did not want to get back SSRI's and that is when I started to take klonopin daily. Looking back, I probably would have been better off just taking the flaxseed oil at 4 capsules a day. Now I am on klonopin and its hard getting off this drug. My hope is that Tiagabine can help me eventually taper off. What would be great is that if Tiagabine and Lamictal can work together to keep my T lower but have the anti depressant effect that Lamictal gives. I have a theory about what's going on...I guess I will see if it works...

 

Could you list out the supplements and antidepressants you were taking? If that's possible? It would be much appreciated.

There had to of been damage already before you starting taking antidepressants or supplements. It's strange how the ringing just became audible out of the blue and then over time it became louder.

Fish oil and Flaxseed both contain Omega 3-s, which play a role in brain function. They had to of been working on the damaged neurons/nerves involving your ringing. Or surrounding areas that connected with the damaged/inflamed areas. I think I noticed a louder ringing after trying a Fish Oil supplement around last winter. Your brain can work more properly with better electrical connections and the myelin sheath is important for that. So a higher function brain would mean it's trying to use those damaged "auditory" circuits and more to function like it did before. But it can't because of the "disconnected" areas.