Study music therapy helps with tinnitus

Music therapy changes the brain so that tinnitus complaints decline significantly

03/27/2015

Researchers from the University of Saarland and the German Center for Music Therapy Research (DZM) in Heidelberg have developed a music therapy for tinnitus. The brain is tricked by buzzing, so that the unpleasant ear noises disappear or at least diminish. Through the progress of learning during music therapy reorganization of the brain tissue in the auditory cortex, which was previously degraded by the tinnitus. The researchers published their study results in the online journal „Frontiers of Neuroscience“.

Tinnitus patients are suddenly unable to hear certain frequencies
According to the patients, the music therapy developed by the Heidelberg researchers at the DZM led to the complete disappearance of tinnitus in eight percent of those treated. Of 80 percent of the participants, the ear noises were then no longer perceived as agonizing.

A tinnitus arises because the affected suddenly no longer hear certain frequencies. „You can imagine it like a piano keyboard that lacks a key, because human hearing is organized by frequency. Since the brain expects the missing sound but does not receive it, it tries to turn it louder - analogous to an amplifier. The result may be a feedback that is perceived by the self-excitation as a phantom noise“, explains the biologist and brain researcher Christoph Krick of the Neurozentrum Saar University in Homburg. Neuro-music therapy is trying to reverse this disorder in the brain. „This can also be explained by a piano: If you strike a note there, the upper and lower notes automatically vibrate, these are tones in other octaves. The tinnitus patients can reconstruct the lack of sound in the brain via the hum and singing of basic tones to the usually higher tinnitus frequency“, so cricket. „The tuning of the undertones of one's own phantom sound initially seems rather difficult for the patient, but then succeeds better on each therapy day.“

Music therapy and relaxation exercises against tinnitus
In addition to music therapy, the patients are also shown relaxation techniques, as the phantom tone can be louder by the tinnitus-related stress. In the current study, patients were treated with a compact version of the therapy. After only a few days, the affected persons reported that they found the hearing noises less unpleasant. „It was pleasing that three years after the relatively short therapy interval, therapy success was maintained. At the beginning of the study it was still questionable whether this could possibly be due to a reorganization in the brain of our patients“, reports Heike Argstatter, from the DZM. Therefore, the processes in the brain during music therapy are very interesting.

Krick examined this by means of state-of-the-art research MRI at the Neurozentrum in Homburg, after selecting various brain areas that he considered to be suitable for such a change. In addition to the tinnitus patients, a comparison group with healthy people completed the learning program. This should ensure that the music therapy and relaxation exercises actually work. „Previously, it was assumed that learning progress only changes the activities in the brain, so to speak, play a new software. However, we were able to prove that after just a few days, the memory cells that process the listening experience have regrown. It was, so to speak, the hard disk of the brain rebuilt and indeed permanently“, explains Krick.

The study participants used questionnaires to show how much their condition has improved through music therapy. „In the patients who have seen the progress of the therapy as being particularly successful, the greatest changes in the brain were observed“, the brain researcher continues. The scientists also saw new structures in the healthy comparison group. As a result, tissue in the brain areas, which are important for the treatment of stress and help to relax.

The speed and the marked extent of the brain reconstruction surprised the researchers very much. „The learning had obviously burned into the brain. We assume that we have thus found the cause of sustainable therapeutic success“, explains Krick. (Ag)