Study Reveals What Causes Tinnitus and Confirms Neuroplasticity and tVNS are key in treating it

A recent study has been published illustrating the connection between chronic pain and tinnitus, although this connection has actually been observed for more than 30 years now. Both conditions have what’s known as a ‘phantom pain’, that is a pain that is not arising from any external cause. In tinnitus, the sensation that is being experienced is entirely in the perceiver's head. The study, published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences , found that the ‘phantom pain’ often begins from the response to an injury but then continues when the brain is then unable to process the pain or noise. This then leads the individual from experiencing a real sensation (noise/injury), to a phantom sensation created in the brain.

This study has confirmed the previously hypothesised link between the two conditions lies in the ability of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens to act as a filter to determine which sounds or sensations to pay attention to. A disfunction in the part of the brain can lead to the chronic loop of unpleasant sensations such as physical pain or unpleasant frequencies of sound in the case of tinnitus.

This finding supports the treatment method currently used by the Tinnitus Treatment Centre, who treat tinnitus using a technique involving Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) and Tailored Sound Therapy (tST). The tVNS treatment promotes neuroplasticity which is a process in which brain circuitry is more easily changed, where it is possibly for these negatively cycling loops to be over-ridden by the correct brain circuitry. This is then aided by tST, where therapeutic music is adjusted with respect to an individual's perceived tinnitus frequency and in listening to this music the brain is then retrained to alter the attention or alter the neural cycle of this sensation.

Even though this research supports the treatment methods of tVNS which are in use by both the Helsinki Ear Institute and the Tinnitus Treatment Centre- the therapeutic effects of stimulating the vagus nerve which promotes neuroplasticity and rebalancing the nervous system through parasympathetic response, are not regularly sited even though they have helped countless sufferers overcome their phantom pain conditions. It is neuroplasticity that can lead to undesired pathways creating a phantom pain loop, and it is harnessed neuroplasticity though vagus nerve stimulation and sound therapy that can ultimately change this pathway and reverse a patient's tinnitus.

Study Reference

Technical University of Munich (TUM). (2015, September 23). Ringing in the ears and chronic pain enter by the same gate: Neuroscientists locate gatekeeping system for 'phantom' sensations. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 28, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150923134105.htm


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Tinnitus Treatment Centre Utilising new technologies to relieve the pain of Tinnitus through Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Tailored Sound Therapy. Partnered with the Helsinki Ear Institute in Finland, utilising their latest research into the field of Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) and proving effective and affordable treatment for Tinnitus in the UK.