Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Tinnitus Seems to Be Somehow Linked to a Crucial Bodily Function
Science Alert ^ | December 06, 2024 | Linus Milinski et al.

Posted on 12/11/2024 9:18:50 PM PST by Red Badger

Around 15 percent of the world's population suffers from tinnitus, a condition which causes someone to hear a sound (such as ringing or buzzing) without any external source. It's often associated with hearing loss.

Not only can the condition be annoying for sufferers, it can also have a serious effect on mental health, often causing stress or depression. This is especially the case for patients suffering from tinnitus over months or years.

There's currently no cure for tinnitus. So finding a way to better manage or treat it could help many millions of people worldwide.

And one area of research that may help us better understand tinnitus is sleep. There are many reasons for this.

First, tinnitus is a phantom percept. This is when our brain activity makes us see, hear or smell things that aren't there. Most people only experience phantom perceptions when they're asleep. But for people with tinnitus, they hear phantom sounds while they're awake.

The second reason is because tinnitus alters brain activity, with certain areas of the brain (such as those involved in hearing) potentially being more active than they should be. This may also explain how phantom percepts happen. When we sleep, activity in these same brain areas also changes.

Our recent research review has identified a couple of brain mechanisms that underlie both tinnitus and sleep. Better understanding these mechanisms – and the way the two are connected – could one day help us find ways of managing and treating tinnitus.

Sleep and tinnitus

When we fall asleep, our body experiences multiple stages of sleep. One of the most important stages of sleep is slow-wave sleep (also known as deep sleep), which is thought to be the most restful stage of sleep.

During slow-wave sleep, brain activity moves in distinctive "waves" through the different areas of the brain, activating large areas together (such as those involved with memory and processing sounds) before moving on to others.

It's thought that slow-wave sleep allows the brain's neurons (specialized brain cells which send and receive information) to recover from daily wear and tear, while also helping sleep make us feel rested. It's also thought to be important for our memory.

Not every area of the brain experiences the same amount of slow-wave activity. It's most pronounced in areas we use most while awake, such as those important for motor function and sight.

But sometimes, certain brain areas can be overactive during slow-wave sleep. This is what happens in sleep disorders such as sleep walking.

A similar thing may happen in people with tinnitus. We think that hyperactive brain regions might stay awake in the otherwise sleeping brain. This would explain why many people with tinnitus experience disturbed sleep and night terrors more often than people who don't have tinnitus.

Tinnitus patients also spend more time in light sleep. Simply put, we believe that tinnitus keeps the brain from producing the slow-wave activity needed to have a deep sleep, resulting in light and interrupted sleep.

But even though tinnitus patients have less deep sleep on average than people without tinnitus, the research we looked at in our review suggests that some deep sleep is hardly affected by tinnitus. This may be because the brain activity that happens during the deepest sleep actually suppresses tinnitus.

There are a couple of ways the brain may be able to suppress tinnitus during deep sleep. The first has to do with the brain's neurons. After a long period of wakefulness neurons in the brain are thought to switch into slow-wave activity mode to recover. The more neurons in this mode together, the stronger the drive is for the rest of the brain to join.

We know that the drive for sleep can get strong enough that neurons in the brain will eventually go into slow-wave activity mode. And since this especially applies to brain regions overactive during wakefulness, we think that tinnitus might be suppressed as a result of that.

Slow-wave activity has also been shown to interfere with the communication between brain areas. During deepest sleep, when slow-wave activity is strongest, this may keep hyperactive regions from disturbing other brain areas and from interrupting sleep.

This would explain why people with tinnitus can still enter deep sleep, and why tinnitus may be suppressed during that time.

Sleep is also important for strengthening our memory, by helping to drive changes in connections between neurons in the brain. We believe that changes in brain connectivity during sleep are contributing to what makes tinnitus last for a long time after an initial trigger (such as hearing loss).

Treating tinnitus

We already know that intensity of tinnitus can change throughout a given day. Investigating how tinnitus changes during sleep could give us a direct handle on what the brain does to cause fluctuations in tinnitus intensity.

It also means that we may be able to manipulate sleep to improve the wellbeing of patients – and possibly develop new treatments for tinnitus.

For example, sleep disruptions can be reduced and slow-wave activity can be boosted through sleep restriction paradigms, where patients are told to only go to bed when they're actually tired. Boosting the intensity of sleep could help us better see the effect sleep has on tinnitus.

While we suspect that deep sleep is the most likely to affect tinnitus, there are many other stages of sleep that happen (such as rapid eye movement, or REM sleep) – each with unique patterns of brain activity.

In future research, both the sleep stage and tinnitus activity in the brain could be tracked at the same time by recording brain activity. This may help to find out more about the link between tinnitus and sleep and understand how tinnitus may be alleviated by natural brain activity.

Linus Milinski, Doctoral Researcher in Neuroscience, University of Oxford; Fernando Nodal, Departmental Lecturer, Auditory Neuroscience Group, University of Oxford; Victoria Bajo Lorenzana, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, University of Oxford, and Vladyslav Vyazovskiy, Professor of Sleep Physiology, University of Oxford.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

An earlier version of this article was published in May 2022.


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; History; Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: cpap; healthlinks; sleep; tinnitus
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-94 next last
To: rexthecat

Yeah, that could do it. In my case, likely it was my penchant for bird hunting with a 12 gauge shotgun. And operating daddy’s construction equipment. And rock and roll.....


41 posted on 12/12/2024 3:42:58 AM PST by LouAvul (He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. [2 Sam 23:3])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Clutch Martin

Wow, that’s fascinating Clutch.


42 posted on 12/12/2024 3:43:38 AM PST by freepertoo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Clutch Martin

I’m in AFIB 100% of the time (not in and out) and I hear a rapid beat well below the level of the ringing which for me competes with the doorbell.

My atrial rate is about 300 beats per minute, but it sounds like about twice to three times that rate.


43 posted on 12/12/2024 3:49:06 AM PST by anton
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

My dad has tinnitus, describes it as a constant high-pitched whistle. It doesn’t bother him at all, he’s that mellow.
I wonder why there’s no drug that lowers hearing.


44 posted on 12/12/2024 3:50:36 AM PST by Buttons12 ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Buttons12

There are drugs that will make you go deaf.......Oxycontin, for one....................


45 posted on 12/12/2024 3:59:09 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: dayglored

Ignoring has worked best for me. Mine is a single high pitched tone. When I first got it, I went on line to a site you can play different tones. When I found the exact match it stopped because I was actually hearing that tone.


46 posted on 12/12/2024 4:01:02 AM PST by pas
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: ProtectOurFreedom

You aren’t alone! Tinnitus for 40 plus years. TV or radio always on to provide distraction. Wet AMD last 2 years requiring periodic eye injections, the last one causing a retinal detachment and chain reaction of unpleasantness. So many ways to get effed up.


47 posted on 12/12/2024 4:42:00 AM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
"...Tinnitus Seems to Be Somehow Linked to a Crucial Bodily Function..."

I thought for sure it was going to be another one of these graphics you see all over the Internet, especially on YouTube:

I guess if you fart, it can be a symptom of anything from halitosis to liver disease.

Boy, am I screwed.

48 posted on 12/12/2024 5:00:46 AM PST by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

I get tinnitus when I fall off the low carb wagon. I’m expecting it this month, something about Christmas cookies.


49 posted on 12/12/2024 5:09:08 AM PST by Varda
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ProtectOurFreedom

I have Chrysler Hemi hearing. Years and years of being a child in the dyno room without hearing protection as funny car and drag boat engines went through their paces


50 posted on 12/12/2024 5:20:20 AM PST by atc23
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

I had over a dozen surgeries in each ear in 1962-1963, my ears have NEVER stopped ringing my whole life, I thought it was normal.


51 posted on 12/12/2024 5:24:11 AM PST by eyeamok
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: anton

If you have medicare —go find the best cryogenic ablation doctor within five states of of you. that can be fixed.


52 posted on 12/12/2024 5:30:23 AM PST by ckilmer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: dayglored; Red Badger

I was a jet mechanic in my Navy days, but I bet that my experience as a 10 year old in Japan had some bearing on my tinnitus.

The sound I hear is most like the sound I have heard when I got my bell rung...that sound of getting my bell rung was a very pure tone, very much like a tuning fork:

“...oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...”

However, my tinnitus has multiple tones at varying frequencies, sometimes I can hear three separate tones, right now, only two, a high and a lower one, but they all have a steady and pure nature to them.

When I was living in Japan as a kid, one morning I was near the chain link base fence at Yokosuka near the Mikasa Memorial (Admiral Togo’s Flagship from the Battle of Tsushima, an old dreadnaught that survived the war and Admiral Nimitz helped raise funds to preserve and restore it)

It was a popular destination for grade school field trips for both Japanese and American school kids, and on that day, there were a whole bunch of Japanese school kids on the other side, and we were lighting firecrackers and throwing them back and forth at each other over the barbed wire fence.

I got the bright idea to cook one of my firecrackers so that when I threw it, it would explode in the air in the middle of them instead of hitting the ground where they all ran away from it, but...as I reared back to throw it, it blew up right next to my right ear.

The pain inside my ear was extremely sharp and acute. I couldn’t hear anything out of that ear for weeks, and the ringing was constant.

I laugh, looking back at that.

As an adult, it seems in retrospect I was reenacting the battles in the Pacific with these Japanese kids!

Granted, we were all laughing, but...I wonder if any adults (especially Marines who might have actually served in WWII and were still in the service at that time) might have instantly had that dynamic jump into their heads!


53 posted on 12/12/2024 5:32:38 AM PST by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

There are as many causes for tinnitus as there are people.

Jet engine mechanic, train engineer, explosives, medications (lots of them), fireworks, sports accidents, fights, loud music, surgery , you name it!...............


54 posted on 12/12/2024 5:36:57 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Me too. Maybe it comes from being a country boy.


55 posted on 12/12/2024 5:37:09 AM PST by Demiurge2 (Define your terms!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: atc23

Yikes, I thought I damaged MY hearing with bad stuff. I cannot even imagine being in a dyno room with those engines. The vibrations must have juggled all your innards to mush.


56 posted on 12/12/2024 5:37:30 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (“Facts can be ignored, but their consequences cannot be escaped” -- Thomas Sowell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: laplata

Early 70’s in the Marines, only the range safety officer wore ear protection, like giant headphones. None of the troops wore any ear plugs or anything. We thought he looked silly. Now I’m practically deaf. I learned a hard lesson the hard way.

Nowadays they make everyone wear ear protection............


57 posted on 12/12/2024 5:43:22 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Demiurge2

😁...........................


58 posted on 12/12/2024 5:44:19 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

There are many reasons. Here’s my personal list…
* Dropping a sledge hammer on a roll of caps on the garage floor (8)
* Exploding 26 inch fat Schwann bike tire at the gas station air pump (age 11)
* Mowing the lawn with unmuffled Briggs & Stratton 3 hp engine (summers, 16-18)
* Iron Butterfly and another four or five similar concerts, Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis. (17) (I just realized the irony of the word “auditorium”!)
* College concert committee - front row at a dozen big name act concerts (18-20)
* CanAm and TransAm races (18-21)
* Unlimited hydroplane races (18-21)
* Guns, mostly .22 (18-22)
* Power plant boiler rooms (21-26)

Individually, none were really bad (except the first two), but I think CUMULATIVELY is the real problem. By the time I started working in an office at age 27, the tinnitus was permanent.


59 posted on 12/12/2024 5:57:42 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (“Facts can be ignored, but their consequences cannot be escaped” -- Thomas Sowell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: ProtectOurFreedom

Exactly right conclusion.

Tinnitus is a cumulative disease. It’s progressive worsened by each subsequent extreme episode of noise.

Prolonged exposure will eventually destroy the inner ear’s fine hair nerve endings inside the cochlea semicircular canal that converts sound vibrations into electrical signals sent to the brain..............


60 posted on 12/12/2024 6:02:13 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-94 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson