The AudioNotch Tinnitus Treatment Blog

Some additional work is being on peripheral nerve stimulation as a mechanism for treating tinnitus (remember Vagal Nerve Stimulation?). Peripheral nerve stimulation shares many similarities with Deep Brain Stimulation, and the therapeutic potential appears promising (if the clinical results are to be believed – I couldn’t find a link to the paper in question):

MuteButton also has peripheral nerves in its sights as a less invasive route back into the brain.

The company’s technology, which grew out of research at NUI Maynooth, targets a person’s sense of hearing and touch to “teach” the brain to distinguish real from phantom noise in tinnitus.

The patient listens to a piece of music, and the sound information is simultaneously relayed to sensors placed on the tongue.

Sensory integration centres in the brain can then compare the inputs and distinguish real sounds (the music) from the phantom noises of tinnitus.

O’Neill describes the results of MuteButton’s clinical studies as “encouraging”– and for the future he sees even wider potential for approach of targeting peripheral “afferent” nerves non-invasively in order to affect activity in the brain.

“Our aim is that everywhere that DBS is currently being applied for a condition, we want to investigate non-invasive alternatives by using single or multiple afferent nerve stimulations.”

Best,
AudioNotch