Studies Of Tinnitus Animal Model And Tinnitus-related Plasticity In The Auditory Cortex Of Rat

Background and purposes: Tinnitus is an auditory phantom sensation experienced when no external sound is present. Approximately 10% of the population experienced this sensation permanently, and for some (1-3% of the population) it can adversely affect their everyday life. For many people, chronic tinnitus is a significant handicap more debilitating in its consequences than typical hearing loss. However, tinnitus is an auditory phantom perception and as such does not have any external physical representation that can be measured, analyzed, or used for diagnosis. The progress of understanding tinnitus and the development of effective treatments have been slow. The main obstacle in tinnitus research has been the lack of an animal model, which forced all researches to be performed on human. It strongly hampered progress in discovering the mechanisms of tinnitus. Fortunately, based on the observation that an overdose of aspirin induces tinnitus in human subjects, the first animal model was developed by Jastreboff et al.. This behavioral model of tinnitus is obtained by administering salicylate to animals. It has been proven to be a valid animal model of tinnitus and has greatly promoted the researches on tinnitus. But previous studies on...