---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Scott Smith" <jdot...@nowhere.org>
Date: Feb 15, 6:23 am
Subject:
To: rec.audio.pro

I though some of you might find this a worthwhile read:

Source: University of California - Irvine
Date: February 15, 2007

Science Daily - For those who pumped up the volume one too many times,
UC
Irvine researchers may have found a treatment for the hearing damage
loud
music can cause.

Fan-Gang Zeng and colleagues have identified an effective way to treat
the
symptoms of tinnitus, a form of hearing damage typically marked by
high-pitched ringing that torments more than 60 million Americans. A
low-pitched sound, the researchers discovered, applied by a simple MP3
player suppressed and provided temporary relief from the high-pitch
ringing
tone associated with the disorder.
Tinnitus is caused by injury, infection or the repeated bombast of
loud
sound, and can appear in one or both ears. It's no coincidence that
many
rock musicians, and their fans, suffer from it. Although known for its
high-pitched ringing, tinnitus is an internal noise that varies in its
pitch
and frequency. Some treatments exist, but none are consistently
effective.

Zeng presented his study Feb. 13 at the Middle Winter Research
Conference
for Otolaryngology in Denver.

"Tinnitus is one of the most common hearing disorders in the world,
but very
little is understood about why it occurs or how to treat it," said
Zeng, a
professor of otolaryngology, biomedical engineering, cognitive
sciences, and
anatomy and neurobiology. "We are very pleased and surprised by the
success
of this therapy, and hopefully with further testing it will provide
needed
relief to the millions who suffer from tinnitus."

As director of the speech and hearing lab at UCI, Zeng and his team
made
their discovery while addressing the severe tinnitus of a research
subject.
The patient uses a cochlear implant to address a constant mid-ranged
pitched
sound in his injured right ear accented by the periodic piercing of a
high-pitched ringing sound ranging between 4,000 and 8,000 hertz in
frequency.

At first, Zeng thought of treating the tinnitus with a high-pitched
sound, a
method called masking that is sometimes used in tinnitus therapy
attempts.
But he ruled out that option because of the severity of the patient's
tinnitus, so an opposite approach was explored, which provided
unexpectedly
effective results.

After making many adjustments, the researchers created a low-pitched,
pulsing sound - described as a "calming, pleasant tone" of 40 to 100
hertz
of frequency - which, when applied to the patient through a regular
MP3
player, suppressed the high-pitched ringing after about 90 seconds and
provided what the patient described as a high-level of continued
relief.

Zeng's patient programs the low-pitched sound through his cochlear
implant,
and Zeng is currently studying how to apply this treatment for people
who do
not use any hearing-aid devices. Since a cochlear implant replaces the
damaged mechanism in the ear that stimulates the auditory nerve, Zeng
believes that a properly pitched acoustic sound will have the same
effect on
tinnitus for someone who does not use a hearing device. Dr. Hamid
Djalilian,
a UCI physician who treats hearing disorders, points out that  a
custom
sound can be created for the patients, who then can download it into
their
personal MP3 player and use it when they need relief.

"The treatment, though, does not represent a cure," Zeng said. "This
low-pitch therapeutic approach is only effective while being applied
to the
ear, after which the ringing can return. But it underscores the need
to
customize stimulation for tinnitus suppression and suggests that
balanced
stimulation, rather than masking, is the brain mechanism underlying
this
surprising finding."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070214221229.htm