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Freddie,

The research I've seen over the years shows TWO kinds of plasticity going on. One is demonstrated over and over in research: the dramatic changes that slowly take place in response to what appears to be passive exposure to sound of different types. Different spectra lead to different functional organizations of cortex!

the second type of plasticity is the kind discussed in the report that started this thread: a kind of conditioning tied in an unconditioned aversive stimulus. Now, in this case, in order to extend the result to tinnitus, we need to consider that if--for whatever reason--one's response to tinnitus is ITSELF negative and aversive, cortical reorganization may take place to better "perceive" the tinnitus!

What to do? Well two things seem to be able to help. First, you can perhaps eliminate the negative response. Maybe counseling, cognitive therapy, the directed counseling of TRT, etc, can do that to some degree.

Second, you can address the cortical reorganization instead. Perhaps sound exposure can be used to rebuild more normal organizations. We know that sound exposure CAN change the organization, but I know of no objective research on tinnitus that tries to measure this.

Of course, I suspect that doing either type of treatment can make the other treatment more effective. there is a vicious cycle: the negative response to the tinnitus heightens your awareness of it (and focuses cortical organization to it), and increased awareness heightens the negative response.

Ideally, it would seem that doing both things at once might be especially effective. And that is why I think that TRT makes sense! We sure haven't done enough research to understand all this, but it sure seems like a great treatment may come from some kind of sound retuning of the cortex combined with counseling to speed it along or make it possible.

(Why some posters in a.s.t. seem to feel that I must be making my pay from pushing TRT, since I can't possibly honestly interpret the research as supportive of TRT...amazes and saddens me.)

Jim