2019-20 Innovation Fund Awards

A new method of treating tinnitus using transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is now being evaluated, following the receipt of a £11,000 award for our hearing researchers. 

Tinnitus is the awareness of a sound in the ear or head without an outside source. It affects 15% of people in the UK; 20% of those experience symptoms that negatively affect their quality of life.

There is currently no cure for tinnitus. The BRC Innovation Fund will investigate specific changes in brain activity during a new neuromodulation intervention known as transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS).

Tinnitus is thought to result from high levels of coordinated nerve cell (oscillatory) activity in particular regions of the brain, and tDCS treatment uses electrical current to reduce nerve cell activity. Neuromodulation is a type of intervention which aims to modify that activity and reduce tinnitus.

Previous research shows that tDCS may be beneficial to people with tinnitus, especially after multiple sessions. However, at present, we have a very limited understanding of what is actually happening in the brain causing tinnitus, and what changes when the brain is stimulated.

Researchers are using magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate what changes in the brain occur during tDCS stimulation. MEG is a non-invasive measurement method of brain activity. It records magnetic signals from outside the head.

Brain activity will be recorded before, during, and after active treatment and sham stimulation (very brief or weak stimulation) in participants with tinnitus.

Recordings will be analysed using standard procedures to determine what changes in oscillatory activity happen, when, and in which areas of the brain - and which are associated with changes in the loudness of their tinnitus.

This study is the first to perform MEG recordings during tDCS stimulation in tinnitus participants. This represents an important step-change in this field in terms of objectively measuring what happens during tinnitus treatment, and considering the potential for a physiological biomarker of tinnitus.

The BRC’s Principal Investigator Dr Magdalena Sereda is responsible for the overall delivery of the project. She is working in collaboration with the co-applicants, Dr Lauren Gascoyne of the University of Nottingham, and Dr Derek Hoare, Associate Professor in Hearing Sciences and Tinnitus and Hyperacusis team lead at Nottingham BRC. Bas Labree, PhD student at the BRC, is running the research project.