"Tinnitus Pharmacological treatment: what to target?"

ELGOYHEN AB

Congreso; 12th International Tinnitus Research Initiative Meeting; 2019

One in 10 adults has clinically significant subjective tinnitus, and for 1 in 100, tinnitus severely affects their quality of life. Despite the significant unmet clinical need for a safe and effective drug targeting tinnitus relief, there is currently not a single FDA-approved drug on the market. Since in some individuals, tinnitus causes irritability, agitation, stress, depression, insomnia and interferes with normal life, even a drug that produces a small but significant effect would have a huge therapeutic impact. The search for drugs that target tinnitus is hampered by the lack of a deep knowledge of the underlying neural substrates of this pathology. Initially considered an inner ear pathology, it is now clear that at least chronic tinnitus is a central nervous system disorder. Based on recent progress in the understanding of tinnitus, I will focus my talk on a brief overview of the pharmacotherapies that have been used, on the challenges faced when designing a tinnitus pharmacotherapy, on potential neural substrates as targets for pharmacological intervention and on the approach followed by the TRI Pharma Workgroup.