Participants needed for tinnitus study

The study will take place at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG from April 2013 onwards.

Study details

The study will involve filling a questionnaire related to your tinnitus, behavioural tests to measure your hearing, the characteristics of your tinnitus and your tolerance to certain sounds (~ 90 minutes). You will then be required to do some behavioural tasks in the MEG scanner (~ 60-90 minutes including setup time) followed by a structural MRI scan (~30 minutes). In some cases we are unable to perform the structural MRI scan on the same day, and thus a separate appointment is required. If you have tinnitus, you will also need to come back on a separate day, in which you will fill in a very short questionnaire and have a short MEG scan in which you do not need to perform any task. This additional visit should take an hour.

Eligibility criteria

Should have any one of the following:

• Tinnitus present all or most of the time for 6 months or longer.

• Hyperacusis for 6 months or longer (finding some everyday sounds unpleasant or uncomfortable on account of them sounding too loud, even though other people find the same sounds ok)

• Tinnitus and hyperacusis for 6 months or longer

• Aged above 18 years

• No neurological disorders, such as epilepsy, stroke or multiple sclerosis

• No current use of benzodiazepines, which include diazepam (Valium) and temazepam

• No metallic implants in your body, e.g. pacemakers, dental implants, aneurysm clips, nerve stimulators, screws or plates in bone.

• Not pregnant (if applicable)

• No claustrophobia that would prevent you being in an enclosed space for 30 minutes

• No conditions preventing you from sitting or lying still for an hour or preventing you from lying flat

The REC reference is 11/H0717/1

If you think you satisfy ALL of the above criteria please download and complete this
questionnaire: http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~tgriff/Tinnitus_Research_Screening_Form.doc
and return it by e-mail to me (sundeep.teki.10@ucl.ac.uk) or to my colleague Will Sedley whose e-mail address is on the questionnaire (william.sedley@newcastle.ac.uk).

Also, if you know anyone who may be interested in participating, please pass on the study information. If selected, you will be contacted with further information and to arrange dates for testing. You will be reimbursed your travel costs and £10 per day of experiments (1-3 days required).

Sundeep Teki, PhD student and William Sedley, MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow,  Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging