2008 AFAR Research Grant: How Presbycusis Affects Tinnitus?

Please give a brief summary of your AFAR research project.
Tinnitus is subjective phantom sound that occurs in the absence of any objective sound stimulus. It is a severe and disabling disorder for the general population, especially in the elderly. The mechanisms of tinnitus and why tinnitus is more prevalent in aging population are still not clear. This project is to study how aging related hearing loss, also called presbycusis, related to tinnitus.

What problems are you addressing and what specific questions will your research seek to answer?
The general goal of our research is to find the neurological mechanisms of tinnitus. The specific questions we want to answer in this project are: (1) Whether presbycusis induced central auditory change is related with tinnitus. (2) Whether GABA modulation in the auditory cortex is involved in tinnitus generation.

What aspects of your project are most interesting from a scientific point of view?
Tinnitus was traditionally thought to originate from ear. However there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the aberrant neural activity in the central auditory pathway may give rise to subjective tinnitus. The most interesting question we want to address is where the phantom sound is located in the central auditory system and what causes this phantom sound.

What are the implications of your research for age-related diseases and disorders?
Aging related hearing loss and tinnitus are very popular disorders in elderly. This study will study the neurological mechanism of these two disorders. Results of this project will provide useful information on tinnitus treatment.

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