Health & Medicine
Tinnitus Severity May Alter Emotional Brain Processing
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Dec 14, 2015 06:18 PM EST
Could having tinnitus--otherwise known as ringing in the ears--affect the ability to process emotions?
Researchers at the University of Illinois found that tinnitus severity resulted in the use of different brain regions when processing emotional information.
"We are trying to understand how the brain adapts to having tinnitus for a very long time," said Fatima Husain, University of Illinois speech and hearing science and neuroscience professor who conducted the research with kinesiology and community health professor Edward McAuley and neuroscience graduate students Jake Carpenter-Thompson and Sara Schmidt, in a news release.
Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI to look at changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain during an activity.
During the study, the researchers previously compared how the brain processes emotion in those with mild tinnitus and those without the health condition that's estimated to affect close to one-third of adults over 65. While in the scanner, study participants listened to and rated pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sounds, including things like kids giggling, babies crying and people babbling. Researchers found that patients with mild tinnitus showed greater engagement in different areas of the brain when processing emotional sounds when compared to those without the health issue.
To understand it further, researchers conducted a new fMRI study to determine if there were any differences among tinnitus patients, as severity of the health issue can vary widely.They measured the severity of tinnitus distress via a series of surveys and questionnaires that pushed on attention, emotion, hearing and sleep.
Findings revealed that patients with lower tinnitus distress used an altered pathway to process emotional information; this path did not rely on the amygdala, which is typically thought to play an essential role in the processing of emotions in the brain. Instead, researchers found that these patients used more of their frontal lobe--a region that's critical to attention, impulse control and planning. The researchers suggested that the greater activation of the frontal lobe might be helping to control emotional responses and reduce tinnitus distress.
The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.
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TagsHealth, Human, PLOS ONE, Sound, Tinnitus, Ear Ringing, Ear, Wax, Amygdala, University of Illinois ©2024 ScienceWorldReport.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The window to the world of science news.
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First Posted: Dec 14, 2015 06:18 PM EST
Could having tinnitus--otherwise known as ringing in the ears--affect the ability to process emotions?
Researchers at the University of Illinois found that tinnitus severity resulted in the use of different brain regions when processing emotional information.
"We are trying to understand how the brain adapts to having tinnitus for a very long time," said Fatima Husain, University of Illinois speech and hearing science and neuroscience professor who conducted the research with kinesiology and community health professor Edward McAuley and neuroscience graduate students Jake Carpenter-Thompson and Sara Schmidt, in a news release.
Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI to look at changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain during an activity.
During the study, the researchers previously compared how the brain processes emotion in those with mild tinnitus and those without the health condition that's estimated to affect close to one-third of adults over 65. While in the scanner, study participants listened to and rated pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sounds, including things like kids giggling, babies crying and people babbling. Researchers found that patients with mild tinnitus showed greater engagement in different areas of the brain when processing emotional sounds when compared to those without the health issue.
To understand it further, researchers conducted a new fMRI study to determine if there were any differences among tinnitus patients, as severity of the health issue can vary widely.They measured the severity of tinnitus distress via a series of surveys and questionnaires that pushed on attention, emotion, hearing and sleep.
Findings revealed that patients with lower tinnitus distress used an altered pathway to process emotional information; this path did not rely on the amygdala, which is typically thought to play an essential role in the processing of emotions in the brain. Instead, researchers found that these patients used more of their frontal lobe--a region that's critical to attention, impulse control and planning. The researchers suggested that the greater activation of the frontal lobe might be helping to control emotional responses and reduce tinnitus distress.
The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Related Articles
Ear Wax Does Not Contain Insecticide
For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone