Research Headquarters A study has been conducted at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) that shown the potential to significantly improve tinnitus, which is commonly known as the "ringing of the ears".
Mark Mennemeier, Ph.
D.
, and John Dornhoffer, M.
D.
, have been working side by side on the design of the treatment study of tinnitus.
The results of the initial case were published in The Laryngoscope, in which it was stated that a single patient that was tested to examine the safety and feasibility of using maintenance sessions of low-frequency repetitive trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in order to reduce the loudness of tinnitus and prevent its return over time.
The Brains behind the Operation Mennemeier is an associate professor of neurobiology and the director of the Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation Laboratory in the Center for Translational Neuroscience at UAMS.
He is one of the people who conducts the main study of the treatment and gets it evaluated for its supposed effectiveness.
Dornhoffer is one of the many experienced professors within the field of otology/neurology at UAMS and is also a very skillful clinician or scientist within the CTN.
He evaluates the involved or participating patients who are interested for entry into the research study and holds a grant from the Tinnitus Research Consortium that funds the research.
The Target of the Mission Tinnitus is described as the perception of sound in the absence of external sound factors and is able to manifest itself in many ways.
According to Mennemeier, the phantom sounds that are alluded to ringing, hissing, or clicking sounds.
These sounds can often change according to time due to sleep problems and emotional distress.
It affects about 17 percent of Americans and is unexplainable.
The Game Plan TMS is the process of placing a coil on the scalp that will create a magnetic field over the brain's surface.
This magnetic field will penetrate up to two or three centimeters form the surface of the coil.
An electric current will be induced by the magnetic field and will either activate or inhibit the neural activity.
The aim of this is to inhibit excess neural activity that has been researched to have some participation in causing tinnitus.
They used a PET scan of the patient's brain and looked for far too much neural activity that occurs with increased blood flow into the temporal lobe.
Right there and then is where they will target the area that has a low frequency TMS measurement that works for inhibiting the neural activity that further decreases the condition of the tinnitus.
Although TMS has displayed effectiveness in a short term span within European studies, the UAMS team has made history by being the first ever to introduce the product as a maintenance treatment modality where the patient receives and initial course of follow-up treatments is the symptoms persist.
There were no side-effects reported by the patient and the doctors did not detect any in the formal assessments that followed after three rounds of maintenance therapy.