Tinnitus Research Taking Place in Dallas

Please please please find something that can help us go back to living normal lives!

 

My tinnitus is in my head only (a hissing sound). I have no tinnitus sounds at all in my ears and never have - I have normal hearing (for my age). My tinnitus was caused by stress.
Although I am 90+% habituated now (21 months in), I hope some insight can be had as to why some people develop tinnitus without any hearing loss.
Good luck with your research.

 

Mine will be in head for ,3-4 days then in ears.s sometimes it's in both head n ears at same time.but when its in head my ears are completely quiet ,I can take a nap if it's in head and when I wake up its in my ears then.so strange..

 

Tinnitus is weird Jeannie !
I also find that a glass or two of wine knocks my tinnitus out completely for a while and yet some people say alcohol makes their T worse.
Thankfully, nowadays, I'm unaware of my T most of the time (and even experience silence at times). I've no idea what's going on in my head/ears/auditory system but whatever it is I wish it would sod off lol !!!

 

Here is some more technical information about our study: Our lab is a part of UT Dallas and is called the "Lab for Clinical and Integrative Neuroscience". The principle investigator is Dr. Sven Vanneste. The IRB number for the study is #15-06.

The study takes 4 hours to complete and you are paid $40 upon completion.

If you are interested to participate then email neural.soundsensitivity@gmail.com

Thank you,
Sandra

 

I just wanted to share that I participated in this study yesterday. It's a long way from any trials but the proof of concept is interesting. In all honesty I can't remember exactly what they're proving but it's related to electric signals in the brain and how those of us with tinnitus predict sounds versus those who don't. It was a long 4 hours of testing but I got to learn a lot of interesting things along the way about how the brain works and what scientists think causes tinnitus. It was great talking to people who are actually hopeful and researching potential cures.

 

Thanks for the update. If you have any more info on their theories I'd love to hear it. Did you have to travel far for the study?

 

An ABR should be able to test to see if you have hidden hearing loss IIRC to some degree.

A sweep OAE test would also be likely to see far more detail. Good luck finding a place that does Sweep OAEs though. :/
http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/testing/hearing/sweepOAE.html

 

@Alue drove to Dallas from Austin so not that far. I have family in Dallas so I just made a weekend out of it. The researchers mostly want to figure out alternative sources of tinnitus. It's widely believed tinnitus originates in the ear or brain, but there are a lot of parts between those two organs.

 

So, I have heard two schools of thought regarding tinnitus, and perhaps they do work together. One being that the signal 'noise' of the auditory system becomes too great to be filtered out and thus you get tinnitus. The other being an inappropriate brain reaction to a loss of auditory input that makes neurons in the auditory cortex become extremely hyperactive amplifying any input it receives, whether it be outside sound or noise in the nervous system. Do either of these trains of thought align with what they are looking at?

I had an ABR but they couldn't detect a Wave I because of my noise sensitivity. The audiologist ruled it normal, but I'm not sure how you can with a diminished wave I.

 

Also have no hearing loss, would be interesting to see their findings. Did they give you an ABR?

 

Hyperactivity is the key word. The hearing system coming from the brain is stuck on. Im praying someone soon finds at least some real relief.

 

@Candy this was a pretty simple test. They did an audiogram and found I had normal hearing, and then did a tinnitus tone and loudness matching. Followed by a loudness tolerance test of some sort. Unfortunately they couldn't match the tone correctly because their machine only goes up to 8000 hz, while my tinnitus is around 14,400 hz.

@Alue those are conventional beliefs in how tinnitus comes about in the brain. It's possible that something else could be causing it related to how our brain and body functions using electricity. Or nerve damage. Or maybe even something else all together we're unaware of. It felt refreshing talking to someone who was skeptical of all studies because studies lead to theories based on observation of a specific group. She also enlightened me to the fact we have 8 senses, though the last 3 aren't typically thought of as senses: balance, three-dimensional sensing (being able to tell someone is in a room with you), and awareness of self (or something to that degree). Really smart people are working on cures/treatments for tinnitus and hearing loss and it makes me really hopeful

 

It's interesting you mention about being 'related to how our brain and body functions using electricity' or how signals are processed in the brain.
We know the potassium channel opener retigabine reduces tinnitus temporarily. Many people also seem to get tinnitus spikes when they eat a high sodium diet even though they don't have meniere's.

Quoting a neurologist Edward Cooper:

I wish I knew more about neurochemistry, but there does appear to be something there.

 

Thanks, pretty complicated stuff...

 

I've had OAEs,DPOAEs etc and they showed no hearing loss at all.I haven't however had a BAR as in my opinion and in the opinion of many others here are way too dangerous for someone who has H let alone T.

 

What's a "BAR" test?