Development of a New Strategy for Treatment of Tonal Tinnitus Based on Lateral Inhibition and Plasticity of the Human Auditory Cortex
Final Report Abstract
In the completed project period, we have concentrated on two complementary lines of research, however putting most resources into the investigation and treatment of chronic tinnitus. In all our studies, we have recorded magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data. MEG is a tool providing very high temporal and sufficient spatial resolution that cannot only be used to study basic auditory processing, but also to evaluate treatment outcomes. First, we have developed and evaluated a novel tinnitus treatment strategy, the socalled "tailor-made notched music training for chronic tonal tinnitus", that is scientifically based on our results on functional organization and reorganizational plasticity of the human auditory cortex, as well as on findings regarding lateral inhibition in auditory cortex. The initial study was complemented by a follow-up evaluation study, which answered questions that had arisen from the results of the initial study. The findings, which e.g. point out that the tinnitus frequency has an influence on the efficacy of the training, will help us to further develop and therapeutically improve the approach. Furthermore, our work in the field of tinnitus let us realize that there is a great need for tinnitus-related health education and tinnitus prevention; this exigency motivated a further study, by means of which we took a close look at a particular population-at-risk for the development of chronic tinnitus, namely young adults, who frequently use portable music players (PMP) in uneducated ways. Our data demonstrated that these exposed people indeed already showed first signs of brain malfunction (i.e. broadened population-level frequency tuning), which will likely manifest in more pronounced changes of auditory function in their future. In order to further substantiate our hypothesis that inappropriate PMP usage is a precursor for the development of chronic tinnitus, we are currently running a retrospective study that attempts to show that broadened frequency tuning is a deficit that characterizes chronic tinnitus patients. Second, during the project period we published a study performed on healthy subjects investigating effects of focused attention on auditory signal-in-noise processing. This study demonstrated that (i) top-down auditory focused attention amplities and sharpens auditory cortex neuronal activity in very specific ways, and that (ii) top-down attention and signal-to-noise ratio interact in rather complicated ways. We strictly intended to use the findings of our basic auditory research to further improve our tinnitus treatment approach. Not without cause, we utilize music as treatment acoustic stimulus, because pleasant music by itself will involuntarily attract attention; we believe that the optimal usage of the brain's top-down attention resources in addition (e.g. by employing certain listening tasks that train certain processing resources) will boost induced neuronal plasticity and therefore the efficacy of the training. Even more, joyful listening to music activates the reward system and leads to the release of dopamine, which plays an important role in the cortical reorganization processes.
Publications
- Interhemispheric support during demanding auditory signal-in-noise processing. Cereb Cortex. 2009 Jun; 19(6):1440-7
Stracke H, Okamoto H, Pantev C
- Customized notched music training reduces tinnitus loudness. Commun Integr Biol. 2010 May; 3(3): 274-7
Stracke H, Okamoto H, Pantev C
- Listening to filtered music as a treatment option for tinnitus: A review. Music Perception, 2010, Vol. 27, issue 4, pp. 327-333
Wilson CE, Schlaug G, Pantev C
- Listening to tailor-made notched music reduces tinnitus loudness and tinnitus-related auditory cortex activity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2010 Jan 19; 107(3): 1207-10
Okamoto H, Stracke H, Stoll W, Pantev C
