Posted on 07/17/2015 12:47:46 PM PDT by Red Badger
FULL TITLE: Quiet that ringing in the brain: New drug promises relief from epilepsy and tinnitus with fewer side effects ===================================================================================================
A new drug may treat epilepsy and prevent tinnitus by selectively affecting potassium channels in the brain, UConn neurophysiologist Anastasios Tzingounis and colleagues report in the 10 June Journal of Neuroscience.
Epilepsy and tinnitus are both caused by overly excitable nerve cells. Healthy nerves have a built-in system that slams on the brakes when they get too excited. But in some people this braking system doesn't work, and the nerves run amok, signaling so much that the brain gets overloaded and has a seizure (epilepsy) or hears phantom ringing (tinnitus). About 65 million people worldwide are affected by epilepsy. The numbers on tinnitus are not as clearcut, but the American Tinnutus Association estimates 2 million people have tinnitus so disabling they have troubling functioning in daily life.
The existing drugs to treat epilepsy don't always work and can have serious side effects. One of the more effective, called retigabine, helps open KCNQ potassium channels, the "brakes" that shut down the signaling of overly excited nerves. Unfortunately, retigabine has awful side effects. Because of this, it's usually only given to adults who don't get relief from other epilepsy drugs.
Several years ago, doctors around the world began reporting infants with severe, brain-damaging seizures. Genetic testing showed that the children with this problem had genetic differences in their KCNQ potassium channels. Most existing anti-seizure drugs don't work for these children, and few want to give babies retigabine because of its side affects, which include sleepiness, dizziness, problems with urination and hearing, and an unnerving tendency to turn people's skin and eyes blue.
Tzingounis began working in 2013 with Thanos Tzounopoulos, a tinnitus expert at the University of Pittsburgh, on a new drug candidate. The drug, SF0034, was chemically identical to retigabine, except that it had an extra fluorine atom. A company called SciFluor had developed SF0034, and wanted to know whether the compound had promise against epilepsy and tinnitus. The two researchers thought the drug had the potential to be much better than retigabine.
The most important question to answer was whether SF0034 works on KCNQ potassium channels the same way retigabine does, and if so, was it better or worse that its parent compound? KCNQ potassium channels are found in the initial segment of axons, long nerve fibers that reach out and almost, but don't quite, touch other cells. The gap between the axon and the other cell is called a synapse. When the cell wants to signal to the axon, it floods the synapse with sodium ions to create an electrical potential. When that electrical potential goes on too long, or gets out of hand, the KCNQ potassium channel kicks in. It opens, potassium ions flood out, and the sodium-induced electrical potential shuts down. In some types of epilepsy, the KCNQ potassium channels have trouble opening and shutting down runaway electrical potentials in the nerve synapse. Retigabine helps them open.
There are five different kinds of KCNQ potassium channels in the body, but only two are important in epilepsy and tinnitus: KCNQ2 and KCNQ3. The problem with retigabine is that it acts on other KCNQ potassium channels as well. That's why it has so many unwanted side effects.
Tzingounis and Tzounopoulos first tested SF0034 in neurons, and found that it was more selective than retigabine. It seemed to open only KCNQ2 and KCNQ3 potassium channels, not affecting KCNQ 4 or 5. It was more effective than retigabine at preventing seizures in animals, and it was also less toxic.The results are promising, both for research and medicine. SciFluor now plans to start FDA trials with SF0034 and see if it is safe and effective in people. Treating epilepsy is the primary goal, but tinnitus can be similarly debilitating, and sufferers would be thrilled to have a decent treatment.
Tzingounis is pleased as well. "This [SF0034] gives me another tool, and a better tool, to dissect the function of these channels," Tzingounis says. "And we need to find solutions for kids--and adults--with this problem," he says.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130625006252/en/SciFluor-Life-Sciences-Presents-Preclinical-Data-Highlighting#.ValbmrVdXn4
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ON or OFF TINNITUS RING LIST, JUST FREEPMAIL ME!..................
THREE RINGY DINGYS!.............................
I would love to find help for my tinnitus!
I have ringing and roaring ...I hope this is true
Wow. Three articles that all say pretty much the same thing!
I deal with my mild tinnitus by running a floor fan all year round. The white noise makes it much easier to get to sleep.
me too.
Do your ears ring all the time.
Mine do frequently, but I couldn’t imagine no break from it.
Kind of like hiccups. I read about a woman that had hiccups for 11 years. After about the third year I would have stepped in front of a train.
I’ve got it from jet noise and industry,
can ignore it most of the time but if
it’s quiet it’s evident.
Hate it, a hissing or constant tone.
Arrrrrrrgh.
Article did not say, but what are these horrible side effects?
OK, read about things in children....but what about adults?
What I do and I’m not kidding, is I listen to this over and over and over in my headphones then try to imagine what it would be like hearing this 24/7 for the rest of my life and I then realize my tinnitus is a gift.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJxmpTMGhU0
What can they do though, there’s no cure. Same issue with me, I use to marshall in jets at Kennedy airport and work around cargo planes. That combined with a severe ear infection and other loud noises gave me exactly the sound of a constant jet engine in my left ear and nothing helps. This one program I use helps a little but not much..........
http://www.generalfuzz.net/acrn/
I believe my T came about due to an antibiotic that I took. I have tried a hearing aid with a white noise option but I rarely turn the white noise on, it mainly just provides a distraction more than anything.
I have tinnitus and it is pretty loud and constant. The best thing I can do is to stay busy and not think about it.
Now, thanks to your post, I am hearing it loud and clear and it won’t quiet down.
That’s OK, I forgive you.
; )
Oh man, I would rather have tinnitus than listen to her..... Can you imagine being married to her!
Yes, they ring all the time. It is worse when I am in a quiet room. I think mine came from being in an Artillery unit in the National guard. It drives me crazy and has gotten worse over the years....
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