Chronic sufferers of ringing ears, or tinnitus, have been trying to treat the condition by utilizing the most developed hearing aids to neutralize the ringing. However, the aids don't always work as they only cover the noise.

MicroTransponder, a company based in Dallas, Texas, is developing a new device that works in a completely different way. A transmitter is connected to the cervical part of the vagus nerve, one of 12 cranial nerves responsible for involuntary motor and sensory functions of the body, and is then utilized by the Serenity System.

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The hypothesis is that most of the cases of tinnitus result from the varying signals sent from the ear to the neurons in the auditory cortex of the brain. The device aims to retrain the neurons to disregard the annoying noise.

To use the Serenity System, an afflicted person wears headphones and listens to computer-generated sounds. They listen to tones that trigger the tinnitus at first, but then sounds of varying frequencies are played to the troublesome tone.

The implant, meanwhile, stimulates the vagus nerve with small pulses of electricity. Chemicals that enhance the brain's ability to adapt are released due to the pulses. The procedure has cured some lab rats, according to Nature, and half of the members of a small human trial, according to ClinicalTrials.gov

"Vagus nerve stimulation takes advantage of the brain's neuroplasticity - the ability to reconfigure itself," says Michael Kilgard at the University of Texas at Dallas, and a consultant to MicroTransponder.

The National Institutes of Health is funding four more clinical trials of the Serenity System. The trials will be taking place at various U.S. universities, and Kilgard thinks a consumer version could be approved by the middle of 2015.

However, Fatima Husain, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, alerts would-be participants in the trials to the procedure as implanting the device is an invasive process. She implores that the people who are debilitated by the condition should be the ones to receive the groundbreaking treatment first. But if the misfiring of neurons from the ear that generates the tinnitus can be rebooted, the procedure could work, she says. 

TagsTinnitus, Ear, brain, neurons, medicine, Trials, Research, Ringing ears