The origin of TRT (Tinnitus Retraining Therapy)
Article published by Pawel J. Jastreboff April 1998. Fifteen years ago, I barely knew the concept of tinnitus. At that time, I took on the challenge of creating an animal model of tinnitus and working on the mechanisms behind this phenomenon. In the mid-1980s, while working at Yale University, I created the neurophysiological model of tinnitus, which postulated the involvement of the limbic (emotional) and autonomic nervous systems in tinnitus, and pointed to the critical role played by the limbic system. Click on SOURCE further down the page and read the entire article (English article)
Fifteen years ago I barely knew the term tinnitus. At that time I undertook the challenge to create an animal model of tinnitus and to work on the mechanisms of this phenomenon. In the mid 1980s, while working at Yale University, I created the neurophysiological model of tinnitus, which postulated the involvement of the limbic (emotional) and the autonomic nervous systems in tinnitus, pointing out the crucial role played by the limbic system. This essential postulate of this model was confirmed 12 years later by the result of the PET study by Lockwood and Salvi, which was just published in January 1998.
As with many basic scientists, I always thought about the possible implementations of my theoretical and experimental work in practice. From this dream came the idea of the implementation of the neurophysiological model of tinnitus in clinical practice, now known as TRT. Only a basic scientist like myself can understand frustration and difficulty in finding someone who is ready to take a risk and use somebody else's idea in practice. I was lucky to find not one but two such people, to whom I am very grateful, who were ready to take the risk! In 1988, I presented TRT and the neurophysiological model of tinnitus to Dr. Jonathan Hazell and audiologist Jacqui Sheldrake in London. They adopted TRT as the dominant treatment approach to their tinnitus patients at one time. Soon after starting to implement TRT it was obvious to them that patients were improving much more rapidly than when they used a program of partial masking and coping strategies.......
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