Tinnitus Appears to Be Connected to an Essential Bodily Function
Around 15% of people worldwide experience tinnitus, a condition causing phantom sounds like ringing or buzzing without any external source. Often linked to hearing loss, tinnitus can significantly affect mental health, leading to stress or depression, especially in long-term cases.
With no cure available, better management or treatment could benefit millions. Sleep may offer insights into understanding and addressing tinnitus for several reasons.
The Link Between Sleep and Tinnitus
Tinnitus involves phantom perceptions—sensations like hearing or seeing things that aren’t real. While most people experience such perceptions only during sleep, those with tinnitus hear phantom sounds while awake.
Tinnitus also alters brain activity, often overactivating regions like those involved in hearing. Sleep similarly changes activity in these areas, suggesting a potential connection.
Shared Mechanisms: Tinnitus and Sleep
During slow-wave sleep (deep sleep), brain activity moves in waves across different regions, helping neurons recover and improving memory. This restful state may explain why tinnitus intensity fluctuates during sleep.
In some cases, overactive brain areas disrupt slow-wave sleep, as seen in sleepwalking. A similar process might occur in tinnitus, where hyperactive regions stay “awake,” leading to disturbed or light sleep. However, the deepest stages of sleep might suppress tinnitus by reducing communication between brain regions, preventing hyperactivity from spreading.
Research suggests that sleep’s natural ability to reorganize brain connections could influence tinnitus persistence. For example, changes in brain activity during sleep may reinforce the condition after triggers like hearing loss.
Toward New Treatments
Understanding how tinnitus fluctuates during sleep could help develop treatments. Strategies like boosting slow-wave sleep through sleep restriction—limiting bedtime to when patients feel genuinely tired—might reduce disruptions and improve sleep quality.
Future research could track brain activity during different sleep stages and compare it to tinnitus fluctuations. This could reveal more about how natural brain processes during sleep alleviate tinnitus and inspire innovative therapies.
Improving sleep and leveraging its restorative properties could provide a new path toward managing tinnitus and enhancing patients’ well-being.
Read Original Article: Science Alert
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