SIX TH INT ERNATIONAL TINNITUS RESEARCH I NI T IATIVE CONF ERENCE
During the Sixth Annual Tinnitus Research Initiative Conference, held in Bruges, Belgium in June, ATA Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) member Dirk De Ridder, M.D., Ph.D., and ATA-funded researcher Berthold Langguth, M.D., Ph.D., took time to sit down with ATA and tell us a little more about how they first became interested in tinnitus. Both doctors have been researching and treating tinnitus since 2002 and have become leaders in the field. Here, they shed light on the current state of research and what still needs to be done.
Tinnitus Research: The Scientists’ Side of a Cure
ATA: Thanks to you both, Dr. Langguth and Dr. De Ridder, for taking time to share some thoughts on tinnitus with ATA’s supporters. To begin, what first attracted you to the field of tinnitus?
BL: I was developing a model of neuroplasticity in the brain, which I thought had a role to play in cer- tain pathologies, such as tinnitus. The funny thing is, back then I thought it would be an easy model because you were dealing with just one perception – the perception of sound. Now, of course, we realize how many aspects tinnitus has, and how many parts of the brain are involved.
I thought that the auditory system would be simple to address, unlike the visual system or the soma- tosensory system. And being a surgeon, we look at things in a very mechanistic way – where’s the problem, how can you fix it? But as we all found out, tinnitus seems to be resistant to the simple mechanistic approaches we all started with.
ATA: So you believe tinnitus could be a solvable problem?
DDR: Yes, sure. Otherwise, you would only shrug your shoulders and say, “This can never be solved.” But I don’t believe that.
BL: I agree with that. Neuroplasticity is what first attracted me to the field, but here I am, 10 years later, still working on tinnitus. What has kept me working in the field is the need. When we started, we discovered that tinnitus patients were very moti- vated. They wanted to participate in clinical trials – any clinical trials. I realized there was a huge need for better treatments because what was being offered was not very efficient. However, it’s not like other diseases, like Alzheimer’s, in which you have tissue damage and neuronal degeneration. Tinnitus is much more complex, but at this point, I do not see a barrier that would prevent us from finding a cure.
ATA: Is tinnitus research progressing more rapidly now, compared to 10 years ago?
Dirk De Ridder, M.D., Ph.D. and Berthold Langguth, M.D., Ph.D.
DDR: I was interested in the application of the proce- dure of microvascular decompression surgery, and then I looked at where the results of that kind of surgery were poorest.
ATA: Poorest?
DDR: Yes, because I wanted to know why this type of surgery didn’t work for tinnitus. Like Berthold,
26 Tinnitus Today | Summer 2012
DDR: Yes it is definitely more rapid. It has become more multi-disciplinary. Ten years ago the primary investigators of tinnitus were auditory scientists, focusing on the cochlea. There was some clinical research, on a relatively low methodological level, with a limited number of clinical trials.
BL: Clinical trial methodology has improved with newer scientific methods that have evolved, and also the focus of research has shifted. Ten years ago at best, you had a few auditory neuroscientists working in the field. Today there are more, but we still need additional minds working on this problem.
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