Possible treatment for acufene

2002/06/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza

Acufene is a sharp, continuous intrusive sound that affects one million people. It can now be said that they are being treated for this pathological disease. The researchers have based the treatment on the differentiation of similar sounds produced by computer and, although it seems simple, have obtained good results.

Patients suffering from acuphene continually hear sounds like the slide or brushes. These sounds sometimes affect most people, but only 5% of the population becomes a chronic source of weakness.

What happened in the brain of these patients was a mystery until researchers at the Central Institute of Mental Health of the University of Heidelberg discover that the auditory area of the brain is reorganized. In healthy people, the surface area of the brain that responds to each different sound is of similar size. On the contrary, in the aquifers the surface corresponding to the inner sound is huge.

Researchers believe that acufene is a disease similar to that occurring after amputations of the extremities. Based on this, nine chronic patients were treated with two sounds very similar to the inner sound they heard. The role of the patients was the separation of these sounds, which in four weeks achieved an improvement of 35%. They do not know for sure whether this four-week treatment is enough to bring about a definitive change, but they expect longer treatments to make further improvements.