Tinnitus Noise Experiments Project

Hi all.

I suspect that there is some form of audio pattern or technique by which tinnitus could at least be mostly silenced. It doesn't seem like one's been found yet.

There are a few reasons I think that. One is that, certain sounds/experiences (such as taking a long shower) can completely mask the sound of tinnitus for me, and transform the sound to be more mellow afterward, and at approximately only 20% of its original intensity (for annoyance-level that's certainly true, anyway). Seeing that this can happen for normal, unplanned life experiences, I believe we could replicate those effects even more strongly if we set that as our exclusive goal.

As tinnitus causes significant distraction in my life, and from that I both enjoy and gain skill through attempting software development for personal interests, (and from that we don't yet know how long off a solution from professional researchers is), I've decided to set out to try to uncover examples of these patterns and techniques.

I know, it's kind of far-fetched I'd just come across a solution through independent experimentation, but hey, it's sort of fun, gives me practice programming, and reduces anxiety in that I'm being proactive about it now.

So what would that experimentation look like? Well, one of the obvious projects would be to try to code a program that was expressive/powerful enough, that you could match the sound of your tinnitus almost exactly. We would then be able to see what the brain would do when put in a situation, that has what's essentially a robust residual inhibition (i.e. residual inhibition that doesn't fade away because the two noises are exactly the same and can't be separated/distinguished from each other).

Granted, it's unlikely people could easily create such a program, and especially not without collaboration. But it's something to think about, as an example that could be very useful (in any case, for understanding the phenomenon better). (I do wonder whether the brain would just adjust and shift down or up in frequency after encountering such a stimulus.)

Something that I think has more short-term potential is exploratorily modifying the ACRN protocol, and searching for patterns loosely similar to it (i.e. based on the same theoretical model, of using different tones to create neural subgroups in the brain that then stop having so much synchronicity/misfiring amongst themselves) Obviously we don't have the original system's source code or hardware; it would instead be based on generalfuzz's excellent online implementation here, which uses browser-based HTML5 Web Audio libraries: http://www.generalfuzz.net/acrn

Really I think that tool is the first real proof for myself that an online program can substantially help for tinnitus--not merely masking the sound, but actually changing the intensity of the sounds when you're away from it. I've only been doing it for about a week, so it's admittedly quite preliminary results, but already I've noticed a substantial reduction in loudness and 'non-ignorability' of the sounds. I was able to go to a friend's house a few days ago, and actually enjoy the lack of motion of the night! (which was odd, because I still heard the dampened noise but was hardly bothered; I think part of it was that I had emotional relief from having found something able to modulate the noises finally)

So what has come out of these plans so far? (I'll update the below as the tools develop)

1) http://venryx.herokuapp.com/others/tools/noise

It's a white noise generator. What makes it a little different is that instead of setting a frequency or dragging a few sliders, you actually draw onto a graph exactly what frequencies to target and what volumes each frequency should have. Also, you can set the "tempo" of the noise/tone-sequences, and save and load "profiles", which makes it easy to experiment with targeting your tinnitus (especially if you have multiple ranges).

So it does have some unique features, although on the whole, it's true that there are better white-noise generators out there. Mainly it's intended as the base for a more 'exploratory' tool, which will allow you to apply 'transformations' to the noise to make it better match your actual tinnitus. So for example, a transformation that will slowly randomize/shift the frequencies, to keep your brain from getting used to a static frequency map; or a way to add pauses in the playback for a given duration every so often, to help break the constancy of it. (I think that's a major part of how existing masker tools let the tinnitus "seep out" of them, even covering the tinnitus' frequency spectrum and outdoing it in volume)

Anyhow, I thought I'd make a thread for it to keep you guys updated, and keep things organized. If anyone wants to help with one of the projects, let me know and I'll set up a github project for it. They're supposed to be open source, but I'm too lazy to get them harbored like that unless I know there are others who could benefit from the source files.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you think of ways to expand the software, or have ideas for any new tools to create and experiment with. +V

 

I like your proactive stance to 'battle' your T. You mention you are a young guy in your introduction. I admire your determination as well as the intelligence displayed in your post here. Keep it up, young man. You have will have success with proactive attitude like this. Looking forward to hearing positive result from your project.

 

I have same experiences. There is times when after a shower, T seems to have dissapeared until it comes back in a minute or two.

Excellent idea. I did this experiment back in the summer by editing white noise track with Audacity. Needless to say "experimenting" was really slow and consuming so I didn't do it for long. Although my main point was to amplify frequencies where I have mild hearing loss around the T. Your program would make this experimenting much easier. Additionally, It could give the possibility to compensate headphone frequency response aswell (none of the "normal" headphones have "flat" frequency response especially at ultra high frequencies).

Btw, when you develop the site, remember to add possibility to change left/right channel separately.

 

Sir, you have my attention!

 

I've put together a new version of the ACRN web-app (the original created by generalfuzz) that gives you more control over the sequence played: http://venryx.herokuapp.com/others/tools/acrn

List of new configuration options:

• The tempo.
• The number of tones in the sequence.
• Each tone's equation.
• Each tone's length, in beats.
• Each tone's after-play delay, in beats. (none, by default)
• Whether to shuffle the sequence.
• The sequence repeat-count.
• Post-sequence delay, in beats.

I also added a profile system, as for the noise generator, which helps for comparing different configuration options quickly.

Since further development of the program will most likely take place within the Team Tech project, the above is a temporary hosting location while the hosting and further-development details are worked out.

 

You sir clearly deserve to be in the Team Tech!

 

Just wanted to mention two things:
1) I'm updating my website toward some other purposes, so the tool won't be available from there from now on. (I made sure it didn't have any active users, using Google Analytics, before deciding so)
2) I'm still willing to help integrate the tool into the new tinnitushub.com website, once it's up and running. (hopefully this spring!)

Since the tool won't be available for a while, I thought I'd post a couple screenshots for people to have an idea of what it's about.

Noise
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ACRN/Neuromodulation
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By the way, the Tinnitushub.com website is looking great so far, Markku!

P.S. It's kind of a shame this forum doesn't let you edit old messages. Makes it so the original-post will have a persistently-incorrect url linked. (maybe I can have it redirect to tinnitushub.com later, but still, kind of annoying)

 

Tinnitus at least in summer (most?) cases seems to involve a lot more of the nervous system than just auditory processing. So, it makes sense to me that a treatment would also need to do more than just target audio percepts... so I'm more optimistic about various combined modality treatments, than attempts to reduce the tinnitus percept with audio alone.

There are multiple forays into multifactorial treatment ongoing now. I may be biased since I'm a lab rat in one of them.

 

Old thread but I agree that i can see the solution in the future being a small device embedded in the ear that plays these sorts of sounds to "silence" the T. Something discreet would be even better. In time it will be embedded directly into the ear so you don't even notice it is there.

Masking with high pitched cricket sounds works well for me but i've just discovered ACRN and find it is quite effective at providing that distraction I need in quiet environments sometimes.

 

Interesting that ARN works for you, sadly it does mine worse.

But some tones make the tinnitus go away up to 80% for a very short time called residual inhibition Google it.

Web libraries have crappy sounds generation and are low quality imho. Mobile apps are lot better

 

Yes I apologise for posting hastily. I had only tried ACRN once (last night) and after about an hour I felt it was doing a *very* good job of keeping me focused in an extremely quiet environment. I don't know what my tone is as it is very high, so I put the ACRN fuzzer to 11khz and enjoyed an hour or so of relative peace.

Except that when I went to bed the ringing came back with a vengeance and felt more intrusive. I had a broken night sleep, meditating deeply to ensure I got some REM cycles in. You know, one of those nights where you dream about the T and then wake up not sure whether you actually got to sleep. (I have a tip here, which I share with all due respect to the audience, and that is if you are male and not sure whether you have had a REM cycle you can check your erection. If you have one, you've managed to get a sleep cycle in).

T is tiring because you get stuck in an endless loop. Most of the day I'm not hearing it because I am engaged in other things and there is enough ambient noise to cover it. Then the noise landscape will change (quiet car, quiet office) and it sneaks back in and I'm left wondering whether I just soldier on and continue, or whether I Put on a little bit of noise to enrich the environment. Sometimes that feels like cheating. Sometimes it feels like I'm weak. Other times its a challenge and I embrace it. Yet other times I just give up and go outside to enrich my noise environment fully to relax myself.

Sorry to go off track here. I was hopeful about ACRN but I would be interested to hear if anyone believes there is a downside to it. (ie. The bounce back effect where it comes back stronger afterwards).

 

I'm going to try this as well - probably not with headphones. I find that when I focus on things my tinnitus tends to diminish. First time thru this game it seemed to calm down a bit - probably due to my increased focus.