Tinnitus can vary between annoying to completely debilitating. There is a TED talk by Josef Rauschecker, who is both a researcher and also a sufferer. If you endure Tinnitus, it is worth hearing what he has to say.
We all suffer from Tinnitus, but if the brain is working properly we ignore it, just like we ignore the feel of our clothes on our skin. The noise/sensation is not a threat, so should be ignored by thie higher cortical areas.
Rauschecker goes through the neural loops involved in this ignoring the sound process. What is interesting is that the part of the brain that produces dopamine is involved. Dopamine is the get up and go chemical – it gets us out of bed in the morning. It is also heavily involved in gambling addiction. Whatever we do, we do because the brain needs that stimulation – that’s why we can’t just stop doing something unhelpful. We really do have to heal the brain so it’s happier, and that is quite a process.
As it happens there is an app that directly stimulates dopamine, and it’s called The Wisconsin Card Sorting Task. It’s free! The version that really works is only on Android. The Apple version is nothing like as effective.
How do you do it? In the picture to the right, there are 4 cards above and one below. You match the bottom card to one of the above cards, making a choice between the colour – red, the number of symbols – 2 or the shape – a cross. When you make the correct choice, the android app makes a burbling noise; when you make the wrong choice a little voice screeches NO! Every 6 – 8 goes, the choice changes without notice and you have to guess the new answer. Sounds so simple.
What is good is that I’ve had a few tinnitus sufferers try this app and they do report that it has an excellent effect on their tinnitus. The fascinating thing is they pay great attention to their result. I’ve done the app a few times, just for interest, and because it really is fun to do; however I have no interest at all in my result. It hadn’t even occurred to me to look. I don’t suffer from tinnitus and gambling holds no appeal whatsover. (Trust me, I have other problems…)
The app is not a cure, alas, and there are other causes of Tinnitus, one being a tight occiput. Someone else cured their tinnitus by using the Z-Vibe in the cymba concha of their ear – ie direct stimulation of the vagus nerve. Another cure is to work away at listening to the pitch involved if the tinnitus has that quality; this is called transneuronal degeneration. For some reason the neurons involved in hearing that pitch are dying and, in a last ditch attempt to keep themselves alive, over fire, resulting in the beeeeeeep type tinnitus. As with everything, there is no simple solution to every problem, but there is always lying that there is.
Because the app is free, it has to be worth a go. And you do get addicted to shrieking NO! So satisfying….