Joe...nice meeting you
thanx for the words of encouragement
its pretty clear you have done your research especially regarding the brains roll in the manifestation of tinnitus
what continues to puzzle me is how lidocane and one or two other drugs in the pipeline, drugs that aparently down regulate the neurotransmitter glutamate, when introduced directly into the cochlea shut down tinnitus, at least for a few hours or for some drugs, longer, but still too short a time
my dad has profound hearing loss above 3k hz yet senses no tinnitus, where-as a good friend has a somewhat "normal" audiological curve, up to 9k ( and then nothing), and she has raging tinnitus
so this and other findings seem to suggest that tinnitus happens when there are a number of "malfunctions" some peripheral (the ear) and some as you point out in the dorsal nerve happening together
and other researchers have indicated the limbic system (nuclear acumbens?) might also have to be involved
i agree with you that at least a palliative solution may be less than a half decade away...oh i do so hope
but hey, looks like slower, but substantial progress, is being made to regrow stereo cilia in the mammalian cochlea
have you sen this?
Virginia Merrill Bloedell Hearing center at the University of Washington (seattle)
http://depts.washington.edu/hearing/HRI.php
i have also read that a bunch of reserch doctors-scientists at MIT are holding a number of patents that are key to hearing hair cell regeneration....the trick seems to be neutralizing retinoblastoma with something called phosphorylation (i dont know what that means...or modifying the function of the gene they call math1 and kip27 thus allowing mammals to do what birds do, that is re grow destroyed hearing hair cells...but, without sparking the growth of tumors...yikes!
on bad days (or weeks) one can only hope and pray a viable treatment will arrive before some of us go nuts
(my wife says, "before??? you go nuts...hey, she says you are certifiably nuts here and now
best wishes
mock turtle