Khaberni -Tinnitus cases cause distress for those affected, significantly impacting mental health and often leading to stress or depression. This is particularly true for patients who have suffered from tinnitus for months or years.
According to Science Alert, there is currently no cure for tinnitus. Therefore, finding a way to better manage or treat it, according to a scientific review conducted by researchers at Oxford University, could help millions of people worldwide. However, sleep is considered one of the research areas that could better understand tinnitus for several reasons, as follows:
Firstly: Tinnitus is a phantom perception. It occurs when brain activity makes a person see, hear, or smell things that are not present.
Most people only experience phantom perceptions during their sleep. But for those with tinnitus, they hear phantom sounds even while awake.
Secondly: Tinnitus changes brain activity, where certain areas of the brain (like those responsible for hearing) may be more active than they should be. This also explains how phantom perceptions occur. During sleep, the activity in these same brain areas changes as well.
Two Brain Mechanisms
A recent research review identified two brain mechanisms underlying both tinnitus and sleep. Understanding these mechanisms better – and how they are linked – may one day help find ways to manage and treat tinnitus.
Sleep and Tinnitus
When a person sleeps, their body goes through multiple stages of sleep. One of the most critical stages of sleep is slow-wave sleep (also known as deep sleep), which is believed to be the most restorative sleep stage.
Slow-Wave Sleep
During slow-wave sleep, brain activity moves in "waves" across different brain regions, activating large areas together (such as those responsible for memory and sound processing) before moving to other areas.
Neural Recovery
Slow-wave sleep is believed to allow brain neurons (specialized brain cells that send and receive information) to recover from daily fatigue and helps one feel rested during sleep. It is also thought to be important for memory.
Motor and Visual Functions
Not every brain region experiences the same amount of slow-wave activity. This activity is more pronounced in areas used frequently during wakefulness, such as those important for motor and visual functions.
Sleepwalking and Nightmares
However, sometimes certain brain areas might be overly active during slow-wave sleep. This happens in sleep disorders like sleepwalking. A similar occurrence may happen in people with tinnitus. It is believed that overly active brain regions can stay active in the sleeping brain, explaining why many with tinnitus suffer more from sleep disturbances and nightmares than those without tinnitus.
Light, Fragmented Sleep
Patients with tinnitus also spend more time in light sleep. Simply put, tinnitus prevents the brain from generating the slow-wave activity necessary for deep sleep, leading to light and fragmented sleep. Although patients with tinnitus have less deep sleep on average compared to those without tinnitus, one piece of research, discussed in the Oxford researchers' scientific review, suggests that some deep sleep remains almost unaffected by tinnitus because the brain activity that occurs during deep sleep actually suppresses tinnitus. This explains why people with tinnitus can still experience deep sleep, and why tinnitus can be suppressed during that period.
Tinnitus Treatment
The severity of tinnitus can change throughout the day. Studying how tinnitus changes during sleep can provide direct insight into what the brain does to cause fluctuations in tinnitus severity. By manipulating sleep, the health of patients can be improved - and potentially, new treatments for tinnitus developed.
Reducing Sleep Disturbances
For example, sleep disturbances can be reduced and slow-wave activity enhanced through sleep restriction models, where patients are only asked to go to bed when they are genuinely tired. Enhancing sleep intensity may better reveal the effect of sleep on tinnitus.
In future research, both sleep stage and tinnitus activity in the brain can be tracked simultaneously by recording brain activity, which helps to learn more about the relationship between tinnitus and sleep and understand how tinnitus can be alleviated through normal brain activity.
