I was going to try to listen to my tinnitus frequency for 8-9 hours a day on low volume when I'm at work because I get residual inhibition when I listen to it and I wanted to test out if listening for longer periods helps my tinnitus in general at all... has anyone else ever done this, and does anyone think this is risking making things worse?
Opinions? I Was Going to Try and Listen to My Tinnitus Frequency for 8-9 Hours a Day on Low Volume
- Thread starter Mpt
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In theory--one theory, anyway--you want sound that excludes your tinnitus frequency. The idea is that cortical response to frequencies builds up according to exposure. This has never made a lot of sense to me, but neither do competing theories.
A number of treatments try to undo the presumed plasticity-related changes in cortical frequency-assignment by using sound spectra that might result in a lateral inhibitory effect on the "over-sensitive" neurons. This would reduce tinnitus, but I've never understood why it would (by that mechanism) result in a permanent change.
The vagus nerve stimulation approach is interesting, because it tries to do something to increase brain plasticity at the same time it uses a (pretty simplistic) sound retraining exposure. Maybe such an approach will eventually work when we have a better understanding of what the precise changes are in the auditory system with tinnitus and when we design a sound spectrum that would restore things to normal and combine it with a drug or something to increase plasticity.
But we aren't there yet in my opinion.
A number of treatments try to undo the presumed plasticity-related changes in cortical frequency-assignment by using sound spectra that might result in a lateral inhibitory effect on the "over-sensitive" neurons. This would reduce tinnitus, but I've never understood why it would (by that mechanism) result in a permanent change.
The vagus nerve stimulation approach is interesting, because it tries to do something to increase brain plasticity at the same time it uses a (pretty simplistic) sound retraining exposure. Maybe such an approach will eventually work when we have a better understanding of what the precise changes are in the auditory system with tinnitus and when we design a sound spectrum that would restore things to normal and combine it with a drug or something to increase plasticity.
But we aren't there yet in my opinion.
That's my understanding as well, and makes sense. Good point here.
As for listening to tinnitus frequency for 8-9 hours a day? In the absence of studies which have been replicated and vetted in the peer-reviewed literature, I'd say no way. My frequency is around 10 kHz and doing that would drive me bonkers. And the risk/benefit, in my opinion, is tipped too much to the former.
One guy on one of the forums tried it for 15 mins per day before he went to bed, and seemed to serve him well. As I understand it, you would need to pulse the tone (brief spaces inbetween) rather than continuous. Yes, it is interesting that there is residual inhibition matching t tone school of thought, and then the opposite school of though of playing all other tones instead. How can they both be right re brain plasticity?
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