Tinnitus Involves Signaling along the Brain’s Interacting Neural Networks ─ Effectively Treating the Disorder Will Be Complicated

© 2010 Peter Free

 

21 September 2010

 

Tinnitus is not simply due to lost or impaired hearing

 

Science writer Carl Zimmer recently wrote the best lay person’s overview of tinnitus’ causes and complications that I have read.

 

Here are some extracted statements:

 

Tinnitus is a lot more complicated than just ringing in the ears.  It is more like a ringing across the brain.

 

It is a disease of networks that span the brain.

 

Such complexity may explain why so many different tinnitus treatments work, but only modestly.  Each attacks just one part of the tinnitus network.

 

© 2010 Carl Zimmer, The Brain: Tracking the phantom sounds that torment some people has uncovered an auditory network running throughout the brain, Discover 22-24 (October 2010)

 

(This is the print edition citation; I was unable to find the article at DiscoveryMagazine.com)

 

I recommend Zimmer’s overview as a good starting point for tinnitus sufferers.  Most physicians know or communicate relatively little about the complex mechanisms underlying the disorder.

 

When patients hear, “There is no curative treatment,” it is helpful to understand why.

 

Additional reading (medical)

 

Josef Shargorodsky, Gary C. Curhan & Wildon R. Farwell, Prevalence and Characteristics of Tinnitus among US Adults, American Journal of Medicine 123(8): 711-718 (August 2010) (this is an epidemiological article; it does not deal with pathophysiological mechanisms)

 

Josef P. Rauschecker, Amber M. Leaver & Mark Mühlau, Tuning Out the Noise: Limbic-Auditory Interactions in Tinnitus, Neuron 66 (6): 819-826 (24 June 2010)

 

Additional reading (lay)

Imaging Reveals How Brain Fails to Tune out Phantom Sounds of Tinnitus, ScienceDaily (23 June 2010) (this presents findings from the above cited Rauschecker et al. article)