In the January 19th issue of JAMA-Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, a research team from Washington University (St. Louis) School of Medicine reported interesting outcomes from a brain training strategy that appeared to help a significant proportion of individuals living with severe tinnitus.1 The nature of these benefits—and other outcomes from this carefully conducted trial—are provocative…
I met yesterday with a former doctoral student, now a professor at the University of Texas in Dallas, Michael Kilgard. As a research fellow in my UCSF laboratory, Dr. Kilgard studied the conditions under which acetycholine enables brain plasticity—showing among other findings that large scale and highly useful plasticity can be achieved by pairing sensory…
Millions of individuals (2% of humankind) are plagued by continuous sounds generated in their skulls, not coming from the real world. Because these ringing or roaring sounds are inescapable and because they strongly influence emotional-control processes in the brain, they can literally drive an individual who hears them incessantly just a little bit crazy. No…