Notched music therapy is one of the therapies that are used to relieve ringing in the ears. It belongs to the group a Sound therapies, representing mainly Tinnitus Retraining Therapy and Residual Inhibition.Notched music therapy works on the basis of theory that tinnitus is a result of maladaptive plasticity in the central pathway auditors. The original tinnitus signal is most often triggered by hearing loss. Based on the auditors neural input deprivation, the excitation-inhibition balance in the central auditors pathway is disturbed, most probably by the weakening of inhibitors networks. Consequently, maladaptive brain changes lead to neuronal hyperactivity, increased neuronal synchrony, and possibly burst firing. All these phenomena have been shown to be associated with the tinnitus perception.
Principle of Notched music therapy is quite simple - the patient chooses music according to his taste, which is adjusted so that frequencies corresponding to his own tinnitus are removed.
This therapy is applicable not only to music files, according to one study it had a good results with removing tinnitus frequencies of white noise (called windowed sound therapy - WST):
http://www.tinnitusjournal.com/detalhe_artigo.asp?id=48
Conclusions of the WST study are questionable, because they did not confirm that the WST significantly reduced subjective tinnitus volume, but its effectiveness can not be entirely ruled out.
I have not tried Notched music therapy and although I cannot dismiss positive results for some patients, I do not trust this therapy too much. It contradicts the theory of residual inhibition, which I had successfully tested and use it for now. But who knows...? Tinnitus is still "unexplored land" and thus cannot be excluded, that after a intensive and sufficiently long use of Notched music therapy some patients may show positive results.
