Publications by authors named "Lauren T Sybert"
The role of the cerebellum in auditory processing is largely unknown. Recently it was shown that rats with psychophysical evidence of tinnitus had significantly elevated neural activity in the paraflocculus of the cerebellum (PFL), as indicated by functional imaging. It was further shown that PFL activity was not elevated in normal rats listening to a tinnitus-like sound.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Research on chronic tinnitus suggests it may stem from compensatory processes in the brain due to lost sound input, particularly involving elevated neural activity in the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN).
- While previous studies showed that damaging the DCN didn't reduce tinnitus in established cases, this research found that preemptive lesions to the DCN could prevent tinnitus from developing after noise exposure.
- The study proposes that the DCN acts as a trigger for tinnitus rather than its long-term cause, with changes in neural circuits potentially leading to ongoing abnormal activity that signals chronic tinnitus.