04 Apr What is the Current State of Tinnitus Research?
If you have tinnitus, it can range from aggravating to a daily agony. If you have a relatively mild case, you can often live with it fairly easily. If you have a much worse case, though, it’s distinctly difficult to get through your daily life.
Getting rid of tinnitus isn’t usually possible, though there are ways to treat it that have been proven effective. Let’s take a moment to discuss where medical science is with tinnitus research. If this condition affects you, then you will certainly want to be paying attention to this information.
What Exactly is Tinnitus?
Before we get too far in talking about the current state of tinnitus research, we should make sure that you know what we mean when we use this term. Tinnitus refers to a persistent ringing noise in your ears. Some individuals impacted by it also refer to it as a buzzing sound.
If you have tinnitus, then it probably means that your hearing was damaged. That often happens if you spent a lot of time listening to loud music when you were younger. Maybe you attended a lot of concerts and stood close to the stage without wearing any ear protection.
You can also develop tinnitus by working at a job in the construction industry or any other where you are often subjected to loud noises, like jackhammering. Again, if you don’t wear ear protection, then you run the risk of developing tinnitus.
You can have either a milder case or a more severe one. Sometimes, tinnitus will go away on its own if you don’t subject your hearing to loud noises more than a couple of times. If you did so repeatedly, though, that is when you are far more likely to get the permanent variety.
Now, let’s talk about the current state of tinnitus research and potential remedies if this condition impacts your daily life.
Shore’s Device
There is a company that is trying to get the FDA to approve something called “Shore’s device.” Auricle is the name of the company.
Shore’s device is described as targeting somatic tinnitus. It could best be described as a bimodal stimulation device. In other words, it combines both auditory and somatosensory stimulation.
It does this by delivering small, continuous sounds to the human ear. At the same time, it delivers small currents to the neck or cheeks.
In essence, this device is supposed to match the pitch and loudness of the phantom sounds in the human ear. By activating the auditory and somatosensory pathways, this gadget will supposedly provide some relief to anyone suffering from somatic tinnitus.
This seems to be one of the devices that could potentially go on the market soon that represents one of the better chances for individuals with tinnitus to live a more normal life.
Lenire
Lenire is a device for treating tinnitus that has already been approved by the FDA. It is not offered over the counter but is only available through an audiologist.
The Lenire device works via a process called bi-modal neuromodulation. Essentially, there is both auditory stimulation going on with soothing sounds coming through headphones, but there is also somatosensory stimulation happening. This is in the form of mild electrical impulses that go to the affected individual’s tongue.
The Lenire device has been shown to provide relief in some individuals with tinnitus, so it would certainly be worth looking into if you have tinnitus.
Deep Brain Stimulation and Vagal Nerve Stimulation
There is also deep brain stimulation and vagal nerve stimulation. These are both still being developed. Multiple companies seem to feel that there is hope for tinnitus sufferers with both of these possibilities, though.
At the moment, data is limited, but this dual approach could eventually prove to be effective with multiple forms of the condition. Various tools are under development, and the science seems to indicate that some breakthroughs could be coming within the next decade.
Auditory Brainstem Implants
Then, there is the field of auditory brainstem implants. It is in its infancy, but there are some scientists and companies that have high hopes for it.
At the moment, there are some clinical trials underway with rudimentary forms of this tech. However, there are some individuals who are leery about anything having to do with the brainstem, and that certainly includes decision makers within the FDA. As you might expect, before such devices would be approved for widespread use in humans, they would need to undergo rigorous testing protocols.
Additional Information
As you can see, there are several options for tinnitus treatment available now, with several more being looked into. The current research typically stems from the idea that tinnitus is mainly caused by reduced responses to sound reaching the cochlear nerve.
This nerve is also sometimes referred to as the auditory nerve. It carries sound-related information from the sensory hair cells located throughout the ear into the brain.
With that information in mind, many scientists and companies have gotten to work on devices that can stimulate those hair cells after they have been damaged by repeated exposure to pervasive sound beyond the realm of what they can comfortably handle. However, there are some who are exploring drug options as well.
Some researchers have also floated the theory that tinnitus is the reaction to the brain’s “volume setting” being set too high. This causes amplification of sound that is both genuine and artificial. It is this response to phantom or artificial sound that could be at the root of tinnitus.
If that is indeed the case, then it potentially opens up a new field of research that uses this information as its base. It could very well be that future treatments, be they drug or device-based, will be focused on calming the brain’s “volume setting” that has been adjusted to an incorrect level by loud sound exposure.
While tinnitus has not yet been cured, it seems clear that the methods of treating it are getting better with each passing year.
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Last Updated on April 4, 2025 by Marie Benz MD FAAD