[net-gold] BIOLOGY: RESEARCH : ANIMAL STUDIES: Rebooting the Brain Helps Stop the Ring of Tinnitus in Rats
- From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 08:40:46 -0400 (EDT)
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BIOLOGY: RESEARCH :
ANIMAL STUDIES:
Rebooting the Brain Helps Stop the Ring of Tinnitus in Rats
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Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:00:11 -0500
From: "NIH OLIB (NIH/OD)" <olib@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: NIHPRESS@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Rebooting the Brain Helps Stop the Ring of Tinnitus in Rats
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH NIH News
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National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/
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Embargoed for Release: Wednesday, January 12, 2011, 1 p.m. EST
CONTACT:
Jennifer Wenger
301-496-7243
e-mail:
jwenger@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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REBOOTING THE BRAIN HELPS STOP THE RING OF TINNITUS IN RATS
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NIH-funded researchers were able to eliminate tinnitus in a group of rats
by stimulating a nerve in the neck while simultaneously playing a variety
of sound tones over an extended period of time, says a study published
today in the advance online publication of the journal Nature. The
hallmark of tinnitus is often a persistent ringing in the ears that is
annoying for some, debilitating for others, and currently incurable.
Similar to pressing a reset button in the brain, this new therapy was
found to help retrain the part of the brain that interprets sound so that
errant neurons reverted back to their original state and the ringing
disappeared. The research was conducted by scientists from the University
of Texas at Dallas and MicroTransponder Inc., in Dallas.
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"Current treatments for tinnitus generally involve masking the sound or
learning to ignore it," said James F. Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director
of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
(NIDCD), which funded a large part of the research. "If we can find a way
to turn off the noise, we'll be able to improve life substantially for the
nearly 23 million American adults who suffer from this disorder."
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Tinnitus is a symptom some people experience as a result of hearing loss.
When sensory cells in the inner ear are damaged, such as from loud noise,
the resulting hearing loss changes some of the signals sent from the ear
to the brain. For reasons that are not fully understood, some people will
develop tinnitus as a result.
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"We believe the part of the brain that processes sounds-the auditory
cortex-delegates too many neurons to some frequencies, and things begin to
go awry," said Michael Kilgard, Ph.D., associate professor of behavior and
brain sciences at UT-Dallas, and a co-principal investigator on the study.
"Because there are too many neurons processing the same frequencies, they
are firing much stronger than they should be."
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In addition, the neurons fire in sync with one another and they also fire
more frequently when it is quiet. According to Dr. Kilgard, it's these
changing brain patterns that produce tinnitus, which is usually a
high-pitched tone in one or both ears, but it may also be heard as
clicking, roaring, or a whooshing sound.
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Dr. Kilgard, along with co-principal investigator Navzer Engineer, M.D.,
Ph.D., of MicroTransponder, Inc., and others on the research team first
sought to induce changes in the auditory cortex of a group of rats by
pairing stimulation of the vagus nerve, a large nerve that runs from the
head and neck to the abdomen, with the playing of a single tone. When the
vagus nerve is stimulated, it releases acetylcholine, norepinephrine, and
other chemicals that help encourage changes in the brain. They wanted to
find out if they could induce more brain cells to become responsive to
that tone over a period of time.
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For 20 days, 300 times a day, researchers played a high-pitched tone, at 9
kilohertz (kHz), to eight rats. At the same time that the tone was played,
an electrode delivered a very small electrical pulse to the vagus nerve.
The researchers found that the number of neurons tuned to the 9 kHz
frequency had jumped by 79 percent in comparison to the control rats.
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In a second group of rats, they randomly played two different tones -- one
at 4 kHz and the other at 19 kHz -- but stimulated the vagus nerve only
for the higher tone. Neurons tuned to the higher frequency increased by 70
percent while neurons tuned to the 4 kHz tone actually decreased in
number, indicating that the tone alone was not enough to initiate the
change. It had to be accompanied by vagus nerve stimulation (VNS).
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Next, the researchers tested whether tinnitus could be reversed in
noise-exposed rats by increasing the numbers of neurons tuned to
frequencies other than the tinnitus frequency. A group of the
noise-exposed rats with tinnitus received VNS that was paired with
different tones surrounding the tinnitus frequency 300 times a day for
about three weeks. Rats in the control group received VNS with no tones,
tones with no VNS, or no therapy. For both groups, measurements were taken
four weeks after noise exposure, then 10 days after therapy began, and one
day, one week, and three weeks after therapy ended.
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Rats that received the VNS paired with tones showed promising results for
each time point after therapy began, including midway through therapy,
indicating that the ringing had stopped for the treated rats. Conversely,
the data from control rats indicated their tinnitus had continued
throughout the testing period. What's more, the researchers followed two
treated and two control rats for an additional two months and found that
the treated rats maintained this benefit for 3.5 months after noise
exposure, while the controls continued to be impaired.
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The researchers also evaluated neural responses in the auditory cortex in
these same rats and found that neurons in the treated rats had returned to
their normal levels, where they remained. This indicated that the tinnitus
had disappeared. However, the control group levels continued to be
distorted, indicating that the tinnitus persisted. Overall, the
researchers found that the VNS treatment paired with tones had not only
reorganized the neurons to respond to their original frequencies, but it
also made the brain responses sharper, decreased excitability, and
decreased synchronization of auditory cortex neurons.
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"The key is that, unlike previous treatments, we're not masking the
tinnitus, we're not hiding the tinnitus. We are retuning the brain from a
state where it generates tinnitus to a state that does not generate
tinnitus. We are eliminating the source of the tinnitus," said Dr.
Kilgard.
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VNS is currently being used to treat roughly 50,000 people with epilepsy
or depression, and MicroTransponder hopes to conduct clinical studies
using VNS with paired tones in tinnitus patients.
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"The clinical protocol is being finalized now and a pilot study in
tinnitus patients will be conducted in Europe in the near future," said
Dr. Engineer, vice president of preclinical affairs at MicroTransponder.
"The support of the NIDCD has been essential to allow our research team to
continue our work in this important area of tinnitus research."
MicroTransponder is a neuroscience-based medical device company that is
working to develop treatments for a variety of neurological diseases,
including tinnitus, chronic pain, and anxiety.
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In the meantime, the researchers are currently working to fine-tune the
procedure to better understand such details as the most effective number
of paired frequencies to use for treatment; how long the treatment should
last; and whether the treatment would work equally well for new tinnitus
cases in comparison to long-term cases.
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Other sponsors of the work include the James S. McDonnell Foundation, St.
Louis, Mo.; Norman Hackerman Advanced Research Program, Austin, Texas;
Texas Emerging Technology Fund, Austin, Texas; and MicroTransponder, Inc.
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For more information about tinnitus, see
<www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/tinnitus.htm>.
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NIDCD supports and conducts research and research training on the normal
and disordered processes of hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice, speech
and language and provides health information, based upon scientific
discovery, to the public. For more information about NIDCD programs, see
the Web site at
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http://www.nidcd.nih.gov
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) -- The Nation's Medical Research
Agency -- includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal
agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational
medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures
for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its
programs, visit
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http://www.nih.gov
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##
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This NIH News Release is available online at:
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jan2011/nidcd-12.htm
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Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@xxxxxxxxxx
http://daviddillard.businesscard2.com
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