Recipient organisationUniversity of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignSource-published name: University of Illinois
Funding£149K
PeriodJun 2025 — Jun 2027
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Tinnitus sufferers will train their own brains to quiet the distress, using real-time MRI scans as a feedback mirror. About one in eight UK adults experiences persistent tinnitus—ringing or buzzing in the ears with no external source. For many, the sound itself is less disabling than the distress it triggers. Guided therapies such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy can help, but they are blunt tools: no one knows exactly which brain changes produce relief, so therapists cannot target them directly. This project aims to close that gap. The researchers have identified a brain region called the precuneus, part of the brain’s self-awareness network, that shows weakened connectivity in tinnitus sufferers—and the weaker the connectivity, the greater the distress. Using functional MRI, they will give participants live feedback on their own precuneus activity, training them to strengthen it voluntarily. If the approach works, it could offer a precise, drug-free way to reduce tinnitus distress without guesswork. The same real-time neurofeedback technique is already being tested for depression and chronic pain, so success here would add a new condition to a growing toolkit for retraining the brain from the inside.
View original technical description
Guided intervention-based treatments, such as mindfulness based cognitive therapy or MBCT, have been shown to reduce some of the distress arising in tinnitus conditions. However, with free-form guided practices like MBCT, specific changes in the brain signatures corresponding to the positive effects are unknown, and thus cannot be used to guide therapeutic interventions that mediate improvements in tinnitus distress. We aim to exploit information about activity and interactivity ongoing in brain regions to train individuals suffering from tinnitus based on knowledgeable choices for intervention targets. The overarching goal of our project is to help tinnitus sufferers self-modulate targeted brain responses by training them with feedback in real-time through functional MRI recordings from the precuneus and from other areas associated with self-awareness (aka the default mode network). Biofeedback-based training has been useful in several disorders to guide participants in voluntarily regulating specific brain responses and associated behavior. Functional MRI scanning offers the added benefit of high spatial resolution, thus allowing for precise localization and targeting of brain regions of interest through feedback. fMRI neurofeedback method has been successful in regulating neural activity and alleviating psychological symptoms in other psychiatric disorders but remains under-studied as a therapeutic intervention for tinnitus. We will employ real-time fMRI neurofeedback for tinnitus sufferers and train them to regulate the functionally affected regions. Our previous research has identified the brain region of precuneus as showing overall decreased connectivity in tinnitus, which is associated with greater tinnitus distress. Moreover, modulating precuneus activations with fMRI feedback has improved overall psychopathology in other disorders. We hypothesize that regulation of precuneus activity and connectivity through biofeedback shall induce lasting effects in overcoming tinnitus distress.
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