Study Suggests Serotonin May Worsen Tinnitus

I am just tired of those useless studies.
Every time I read "suggest or may" in any study I know it's useless.

 

Especially when it comes to rodents.

 

https://advancedaudiologyofny.com/latest-news/serotonin-could-worsen-tinnitus

 

That's the same press release as in the first post in this thread.

 

Other studies show that MDMA helps tinnitus, which is a drug that floods your brain with serotonin.

...just sayin.

 

This study has very little to say about serotonin and tinnitus. They applied non-physiologic concentrations of serotonergic agonist to slices of young mouse brainstem. The connection to tinnitus and SSRIs is weak, at best. It’s really a slice physiology basic science study that got hyped by their university public relations officer as something relevant to tinnitus. As researchers, we can very quickly tell whether a study is solid vs crap or is basic science vs. clinically relevant.

It’s frustrating for me to see y’all reacting to studies because you aren’t “in the biz” and often times you aren’t able to calibrate your enthusiasm to the quality of the work. Not pointing fingers at anyone here, obviously, but it makes me wish you could better separate the wheat from the chaff.

The senior author on this paper, Larry Trussell, is one of the best auditory system physiologists in the world. He trained Thanos Tzounopolous, whom many of you keep track of. Most anything Larry or Thanos publish is very high quality but also very basic science, in the sense that their work probes the effect of drugs on basic circuit properties of (usually) disconnected sections of mouse brain. The connection to the perceptual state of tinnitus in this work, no matter how high the quality, is always tenuous at best. There is no good way to know if a mouse has tinnitus - just varying degrees of bad ways.

 

It’s not useless, it’s basic science. It’s a perfectly wonderful study about how neurons are affected by a neurotransmitter that is not often linked to the operations of this particular brain area. This is a basic science study. Work of this nature is the bedrock of medicine. These insights build over the years to become the fodder for clinical trials. It is not a study on tinnitus, per se, though the findings are interesting to consider in this context.

Just because it isn’t a clinical trial on hair cell regeneration doesn’t make it “useless”. A study of this nature, no matter how compelling the result, would have to use a qualifier like “may suggest” or “could one day motivate” because the subject of the work is far removed from people with tinnitus.

 

Are there any conducted studies on the link between GABA and tinnitus?

 

It seems like seroquel lowers my tinnitus unless I'm just having good days for now.

 

Dr. Robert Aaron Levine's Tinnitus...

 

A very good comprehensive overview.

 

Maybe there's a benzodiazepine that completely surpresses these neural excitations.

 

For me it does!

 

Which one works best for you?

 

I dont think it matters, but Oxazepam and Diazepam works. Many take Clonazepam.
It´s not a viable tratment though!

 

Clonazepam sure isn't a viable treatment but I know a few people who don't have tinnitus who are completely dependent on benzodiazepines, in particular they are depedent on diazepam. One of these people is a mother who is 53 years old and has been taking diazepam for a little more than 20 years and she's been fine, apart from recently developing slight tolerence to it to which her Doctor prescribed a double dose.
Anyway I know this doesn't mean everyone can stay on it for 20+ years it's just an interesting story I guess, it sure is possible to stay on it for a long time but it depends on the individual's physiology. That's why I wonder if there is a benzodiazepine with minimal negative effects that has optimal suppression of this neural excitation.

 

Benzo is benzo, I´m afraid. I have wondered about these questions myself for a long time.
I started a thread a while back regarding its sustainability:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...reatment-of-tinnitus-is-it-sustainable.22258/

Maybe you´ll find it interesting

 

Benzo is in fact a benzo but there are so many reports of clonazepam doing a lot more harm than other benzos for some reason. It was a very interesting read, I hope you are doing better now. Also requiem for a dream is a very scary film imo, extremely good though.