The new sound therapy offering hope to millions who suffer from tinnitus
The therapy involves patients listening to modified sounds in a bid to disrupt patterns of activity in their brains and quieten the ringing
Millions of people across the UK who suffer from tinnitus may soon have a new avenue for relief after promising research into a new sound therapy.
Tinnitus is characterised by the perception of noises such as buzzing, humming, hissing, or throbbing, despite there being no outside sound.
Researchers are optimistic this innovative treatment could eventually be delivered via a smartphone app, making it widely accessible.
The therapy itself involves patients listening to modified sounds, a method designed to disrupt specific patterns of activity within the brain and effectively quieten the intrusive ringing.
A trial involving 77 individuals was spearheaded by Newcastle University and partially funded by the RNID, the national charity for deaf people. Tinnitus can be triggered by various factors, including hearing loss, certain medications, or mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.
Dr Will Sedley, consultant neurologist and researcher at Newcastle University, told the Press Association: “At the moment, there aren’t really very good treatments to get rid of the tinnitus sound, and it’s all about helping people disengage and learn to live better with the symptom.”
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.
Dr Sedley said: “We came to analyse the data, and what we found is that, on average, people listening to the active ones, but not the placebo ones, during that phase did get a significant quieting of their tinnitus.”
The study found the therapy quietened tinnitus by around 10% on average, which lasted for around three weeks after treatment ended.
Dr Sedley said: “This could be done to everyday sounds like music, which is our later ambition.
“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.”
While more studies are needed, researchers are hopeful of developing the therapy further.
Dr Sedley told PA: “There’s all manner of different modifications we can make to the sounds themselves, or how long a day you listen for.
“If we could build this into the normal, listening to music, and talk radio, podcasts, people are doing anyway, they could rack up hours and hours of listening every day.
“One of the nice things is, if it does work, it doesn’t need special hardware. It could be built into people’s ordinary, everyday lives and listening experience.
“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.
“And this wouldn’t even necessarily have to be done from within a medical pathway or a clinic or prescribed. They could just get an app, for instance, or log onto a website and just start as soon as they want to, really.”
Dr Sedley estimates that about one in eight adults will develop persistent tinnitus, rising to one in four among the elderly, and there are numerous theories about what causes it.
He told PA: “One of the theories about what causes it is that when various cells, brain cells in the hearing pathway, lose some of their input from a little bit of hearing loss, too much noise, or just natural ageing, they get spontaneously active, rather than being triggered on and off by actual sounds as much as they should.
“And that spontaneous activity, they end up firing in rhythm with each other, so they all fire at the same time and stop at the same time.”
He likens this “synchrony” to a crowd at a football match.
“What we’re doing is using sound as a way to try and break up that synchrony, or make the neurons in that crowd say things at different times, and if we can get them doing that, then the brain will get less of a message from them, and we’ll hear less tinnitus.”
Dr Sedley said that potentially, anyone living with tinnitus could stand to benefit from the sound therapy, although he stressed it is “early days”.
Ralph Holme, director of research at RNID, said: “This is a highly promising development when it comes to possible treatments for tinnitus – a condition which affects millions in the UK and for which there is currently no cure.
“Most current tinnitus therapies focus on learning to live with the condition and developing ways to manage it, which millions of people do find hugely positive and helpful.
“However, this new method focuses on reducing the sound itself and targets the source of the tinnitus perception.
“And because the therapy has the potential to be rolled out with relative ease, in the future, people could access treatment with just a few swipes of their smartphone.”