Richard Salvi is Distinguished Speaker at the Third Annual Neuroscience Research Day hosted by the Buffalo Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience and the University of Buffalo, Neuroscience Program on September 26, 2009. Click here for more details on his presentation, "The Ringing in Your Ear (Tinnitus) is Really in Your Brain".
Tinnitus related videos and articles on ABC.com. April 7, 2008 article, "Buzz Kill: Scientists Aim to Stop Ringing in Ears," and video, "Relief for Ringing Ears," was
partially filmed at the Center for Hearing and Deafness. Dr. Salvi is mentioned in the article and is on the video.
New York Times article (April 1, 2008), "New Therapies Fight Phantom Noises of Tinnitus."
The Oregonian (March 12, 2008), "Those Painful Ear Rings."
Tinnitus Related Website Links:
Alliance Tinnitus & Hyperacusis Center
Australian Tinnitus Association
Frequently Asked Questions on Tinnitus
Pawel Jastreboff Tinnitus Website
MEDLINEplus Health Information
Ntl. Inst. on Deafness & Other Com. Disorders
Netherlands Tinnitus Association
Oregon Health Science Tinnitus Center
Royal National Institute for Deaf People
Sound Pillow (Phoenix
Productions)
Tinnitus Association of Canada
Tinnitus & Hyperacusis Website, U.K.
Tinnitus & Hyperacusis Cntr., Univ. of MD
Tinnitus Treatment Possibilities
Articles Related to Tinnitus:
Health News - Music Quiets Ringing - Research Summary
From the Chicago
Tribune, Sounds of Tinnitus CD:
By Jon Anderson, Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Published August 19, 2004
It could be the most irritating CD ever made. Indeed, that was the idea.
"As a sound designer, it was an interesting proposition. Somebody comes to you and says, `I hear sounds in my head. I want you to reproduce them,'" recalled DePaul University professor Tom Miller, chairman of the school's Sound Recording Technology Program.
For several weeks, Miller closeted himself in a lab in DePaul's music building on its Lincoln Park campus, surrounded by banks of buttons and dials. Using software designed for composing electronic music, he came up with rushing winds, high-pitched chirps, ocean waves, distorted voices and warped music.
The result--now out--is the "Sounds of Tinnitus," a disc for "people who want to share what they hear," Miller said last week.
Those people, for the most part, are among an estimated 50 million people in the U.S. who have experienced tinnitus, pronounced ti-NIGHT-us, a word drawn from Latin that means "to tinkle or to ring like a bell." Strange sounds vibrate in the ears or head. No external source is present. Nor is there an "off" button.
"The problem is that outsiders can't hear it," said Sidney Kleinman, a Loop attorney, who has suffered from tinnitus for 35 years. He now serves as the national chair of the American Tinnitus Association whose aim is "to silence tinnitus through research, prevention and public awareness."
Often associated with hearing loss, tinnitus can come about after loud noises, such as explosions or cranked-up stereos that injure the hearing mechanism. Some diseases and reactions to certain medications also are blamed. In Kleinman's case, there was no warning.
In 1969, on a typical morning, he was in his law office, working.
"At 9 a.m., everything was fine," he recalled. "By 9.30 a.m., I couldn't hear in my right ear--and there was a tremendous roaring noise."
For those who have it, tinnitus is not an easy problem to describe. There is no cure. But there are ways to cope.
Some people find masking sounds helpful, using machines that generate the murmurs of woods or sea. Some medications can help.
The primary aim of "Sounds," Kleinman said, is to help break down "the sense of isolation that many people with tinnitus feel." Or as Miller put it, while playing the CD for a reporter and filling his lab with squeaks and hisses, "Put this on, play it in the background--and try to go about your daily routine.
"You'll see how disturbing tinnitus really is."
So far, the ATA, whose Web site is www.ata.org, has burned 1,000 of the CDs to distribute to audiologists, ear-nose-and-throat doctors, medical educators and legislators with an interest in hearing issues. It also will go, Kleinman noted, to a significant number of significant others.
That includes Kleinman's wife, Mary. "Gee, that's awful," she said, after first hearing the CD.
The words brought joy to Miller.
"People have had to put their fingers in their ears when we played it," he said.
Might there be a call for the unsettling sounds of "Sounds" beyond the tinnitus market?
It's unlikely, but--in these days of clangorous tunes going platinum--"you never can tell," Miller said.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune