Question: what do you use in your experiments

Hannah Brotherton answered on 17 Jun 2013:

Hi,
I use what is known as a tympanometer. This allows me to measure when a reflex from the muscles in our ears happens (usually at loud sounds, because it protects us from loud noises).

To create hearing loss, which is a cause of constant ringing in the ears (tinnitus), I use healthy adults and I plug their ears with a normal earplug. This simulates hearing loss and I can see what changes are happening in the brain. By changes I mean how the activity (firing rate) of the brain changes, which directly affects the reflex. It is predicted in people with tinnitus, their brain activity has increased so much, they are in a way hearing their own brain at work. We can see this happening in normal people when I plug their ears. The brain increases its activity to compensate for a reduction in sound coming into the brain, this makes the brain more sensitive to sound and this causes the reflex to happen at lower sound intensities.

Each year of a PhD you get to do different studies, so next year I get to put electrodes across the whole brain and “see” how the electric activity in the brain changes in this way. A colleague of mine uses fMRI, the imaging equipment you see in hospitals. He can literally see where activity is occurring the brain and I hope to end up using this piece of equipment one day.