Tinnitus Vagus Nerve Stimulation-Tone Therapy
UT Dallas researchers have demonstrated that treating tinnitus using vagus nerve stimulation-tone therapy is safe and brought significant improvement to some of the participants in a clinical trial. Researchers used a new method pairing vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) with auditory tones to alleviate the symptoms of chronic tinnitus. VNS is an FDA-approved method for treating various illnesses, including depression and epilepsy. It involves sending a mild electric pulse through the vagus nerve, which relays information about the state of the body to the brain.
Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity, neuroelasticity, or neural plasticity, is the ability of the brain to change continuously throughout an individual's life, e.g., brain activity associated with a given function can be transferred to a different location, the proportion of grey matter can change, and synapses may strengthen or weaken over time. The aim of neuroplasticity is to optimize the neural networks during phylogenesis, ontogeny, and physiological learning, as well as after a brain injury. Research in the latter half of the 20th century showed that many aspects of the brain can be altered (or are "plastic") even through adulthood. However, the developing brain exhibits a higher degree of plasticity than the adult brain.
Chronic tinnitus is a persistent ringing in the ears that affects about 23 million Americans and one-third of active duty military veterans. Scientists from UT Dallas recently demonstrated that chronic tinnitus is not in the ears but results from pathological activity in the hearing part of the brain.
Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ner.12127/abstract
Related Publications:
Scientific Reports: Pairing sound with vagus nerve stimulation modulates cortical synchrony and phase coherence in tinnitus: An exploratory retrospective study
Scientific Reports: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Paired with Tones for the Treatment of Tinnitus: A Prospective Randomized Double-blind Controlled Pilot Study in Humans
Neuromodulation: Safety and Efficacy of Vagus Nerve Stimulation Paired With Tones for the Treatment of Tinnitus: A Case Series
The ReLief System used to reduce the ringing sound that Tinnitus patients experience was developed by the Texas Biomedical Device Center at The University of Texas at Dallas.
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texas university tinnitus research