Survey Results: Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) 2018 Conference

[Markku]

The TRI 2018 conference was held in Germany earlier this year. You can find more about the conference, including @Steve's conference report here.

After the conference, we created a survey in collaboration with TRI to investigate the attendees' experiences, so that future TRI conferences can further be improved. The survey also asked a few unrelated questions relating to our work.

The results have now been analyzed by Kushal Agrawal, one of the ESIT students. In total we received 83 completed responses from the 300+ attendees. Over 40% of the respondents reported having tinnitus.

I have attached the PDF. I had to remove the open-ended answers because there might be some data protection issues with publishing those. Otherwise the attached report is complete.

 

[frohike]

[x] not sure, but around the time we get flying cars, more or less.

 

[Contrast]

A few people and myself wanted to know why most tinnitus researchers treat tinnitus as if it were a completely separate issue from hearing loss, yet they still subscribe to the fact that tinnitus is caused by hearing loss.

What I want to know is that if hearing input is restored via a novel treatment for hearing loss will the auditory brain rewire itself and undo the tinnitus signal.

Do they have evidence to suggest that tonotopic reorganization from sensorineural hearing loss is permanent even after hypothetical therapeutics can reverse the original damage? Why are cochlear implants, conductive hearing loss when corrected, and ear wax removal showing evidence of reducing tinnitus yet the ATA has never publicly mentioned cochlear hair cell regeneration, synapse repair as a possible therapeutic for tinnitus?

I know the BTA suggested this possibility but not the ATA.

Experiment with aspirin and acoustic trauma in animal models to highly increase the chance of giving them tinnitus, wait several months after observing which animals have tinnitus. Then apply a drug that is suppose to repair hair cells and synapses then share the results.

 

[Shera]

I've always wondered how they know the animals have tinnitus? Is it brainwaves or something. (Or the animals give into the urge to bash their heads into the wall. JK.)

Anywho, all great questions.

 

[Silvio Sabo]

I've always wondered how they know the animals have tinnitus? Is it brainwaves or something. (Or the animals give into the urge to bash their heads into the wall. JK.)

Anywho, all great questions.

It's done using a technique called "gap detection". It's very well explained in the video I have linked below. The video is a lecture but the part about gap detection starts at 11m 49s and is explained in the following 2 mins (it ends at around the 14 min mark).

 

[Contrast]

It's done using a technique called "gap detection". It's very well explained in the video I have linked below. The video is a lecture but the part about gap detection starts at 11m 49s and is explained in the following 2 mins (it ends at around the 14 min mark).

Thank you so much, I was looking for that video and lost it.

 

[Shera]

It's done using a technique called "gap detection". It's very well explained in the video I have linked below. The video is a lecture but the part about gap detection starts at 11m 49s and is explained in the following 2 mins (it ends at around the 14 min mark).

Thank you!