Personalized neuromodulation therapy for treating tinnitus and other conditions

Stanford researchers in the Tass Lab have patented a device and algorithm designed to optimize Acoustic Coordinated Reset (CR) stimuli for individualized tinnitus treatment. It quickly selects and calibrates CR treatment tones based on a patient's specific hearing loss, tinnitus frequency, and neuronal subpopulations. This personalized approach can also adjust stimuli as tinnitus frequency changes during therapy. The technology can be implemented as a stand-alone device or integrated into hearing aids, smartphones, or tablets. Developed to improve tinnitus therapy, it also has potential applications in tinnitus diagnostics and treating other neural synchrony disorders, such as depression.

Stage of Research
The inventors recently demonstrated that stimuli tailored to individual hearing levels and incorporating specific frequency spacing better target affected neuronal subpopulations, yielding the largest effects on tinnitus. Future research will explore if these optimized stimuli can shorten therapy duration, enhance benefits, or both, compared to non-optimized stimuli. It is anticipated that this personalized approach will increase the number of patients whose tinnitus is eliminated, reduce symptoms in remaining patients, and decrease therapy duration.