Tinnitus, a near constant ringing or buzzing in the ears, affects 50 million people in the United States alone.

It can cause depression, anxiety, sleep disruption and other problems. The annoying ringing in the ears that marks tinnitus could be linked to the eyes as well as to the ears.

It could be a simple problem of miscommunication in the brain.

This is the first research to show that a failure of the complicated way our brain systems talk to each other contributes to the cause of tinnitus.

The researchers studied eight patients who had gaze-evoked tinnitus (GET), in which the loudness and pitch of this buzzing increase when a patient looks to the side.

GET sometimes develops after surgery to remove tumors of the auditory nerve.

Normally, the visual and auditory parts of the brain communicate with each other to determine which one gets priority. Looking to the side, or lateral gaze, should suppress auditory brain activity.

But in GET patients this does not happen. The researchers think this failure of one sensory system to suppress another may be an important feature of tinnitus.

Neurology March 2001