Tinnitus experts Susan Shore and Calvin Wu discuss the future of tinnitus research and the approaches that are most likely to provide reliable therapies…
The new paper, titled “Mechanisms of Noise-Induced Tinnitus: Insights from Cellular Studies,” was published in Neuron on July 3, 2019. It is a thorough review of 161 different scientific papers… and the concluding remarks provided by authors Susan Shore and Calvin Wu are insightful and exciting.
Here is a link to the full text:
Mechanisms of Noise-Induced Tinnitus: Insights from Cellular Studies
Studies of single neurons and how ensembles of neurons produce population responses are likely to be the most effective route to unraveling the mechanisms of this elusive disease. To enable us to develop methods to alleviate the bothersome or debilitating symptoms of tinnitus, we need to understand the cellular underlying mechanisms.
Here is the abstract:
Tinnitus, sound perception in the absence of physical stimuli, occurs in 15% of the population and is the top-reported disability for soldiers after combat. Noise overexposure is a major factor associated with tinnitus but does not always lead to tinnitus. Furthermore, people with normal audiograms can get tinnitus. In animal models, equivalent cochlear damage occurs in animals with and without behavioral evidence of tinnitus. But cochlear-nerve-recipient neurons in the brainstem demonstrate distinct, synchronized spontaneous firing patterns only in animals that develop tinnitus, driving activity in central brain regions and ultimately giving rise to phantom perception. Examining tinnitus-specific changes in single-cell populations enables us to begin to distinguish neural changes due to tinnitus from those that are due to hearing loss.
NOTE: The article has a delayed release embargo on PMC until July 2020. However, the full text is now public and online. It was tracked down by TinnitusTreatmentReport.com’s automated research gathering system. To get the latest tinnitus research – without waiting months and months for it to become “public” (or easily found) – remember to sign up for our free weekly email updates. You will receive these weekly email summaries every Saturday, which will be sent out in the coming weeks.