Sound therapy offers hope for tinnitus relief
BBCA new sound therapy could help people who suffer with ringing and buzzing in their ears.
Researchers at Newcastle University are hopeful a treatment for tinnitus, where people perceive noise despite there being no outside sound, could one day be available as a smartphone app.
A study in which patients listened to modified sounds in a bid to disrupt patterns of activity in their brains found the therapy quietened tinnitus by about 10% for about three weeks after treatment ended.
Newcastle University's Dr Will Sedley said the team hoped the therapy could make tinnitus, for which there is currently no cure, "quieter for a fair number of people living with it".
Tinnitus can be caused by hearing loss, certain medications or anxiety and depression.
The trial, led by the university and part-funded by the national charity for deaf people RNID, included 77 people.
Researchers made small changes to synthetic musical notes for one group, while other patients were given placebo sounds to listen to, which had been modified to different frequencies.
The groups listened to sounds online for an hour a day for six weeks, before having a three-week break.
They then listened for another six weeks, with the sounds swapped, although patients were not aware which sound was the placebo and which was the modified musical note.
PA MediaDr Sedley, consultant neurologist and researcher at Newcastle University, said: "On average, people listening to the active ones, but not the placebo ones, during that phase did get a significant quieting of their tinnitus.
"We did it with synthetic musical notes, but we just modify them subtly, so that the neurons that respond to sound pitches or frequencies near to the tinnitus, we're just activating them at slightly different times to each other, rather than all together."
The researchers stressed it was "early days" but had ambitions to replicate the process with more everyday sounds.
"If we could build this into the normal, listening to music and talk radio, podcasts, [which] people are doing anyway, they could rack up hours and hours of listening every day," Dr Sedley said.
"So the hope is, even if we can't cure tinnitus, that we might find something that makes it quieter for a fair number of people living with it just by doing the things they would already be doing in their lives."
