Sound stimulation could help alleviate long-term concussion symptoms

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-11-22 19:01

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Sound stimulation of the brain could help ease long-term concussion symptoms, according to international researchers. The team recruited just over 100 people with persistent symptoms after a mild traumatic brain injury and gave them 10 sessions of sound stimulation - half with tones specifically engineered to link to brainwaves, and half with random tones. The researchers say at three and six months, participant symptoms improved across both groups, however there appeared to be no difference in improvement between them. The researchers say this means while sound stimulation could be useful for improving concussion symptoms, tailoring the sounds to brain activity may not be useful.

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From: Wiley

Can sound stimulation lessen long-term concussion symptoms?

New research indicates that acoustic stimulation of the brain may ease persistent symptoms in individuals who experienced mild traumatic brain injury in the past.

The study, which is published in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, included 106 military service members, veterans, or their spouses with persistent symptoms after mild traumatic brain injury 3 months to 10 years ago. Participants were randomized 1:1 to receive 10 sessions of engineered tones linked to brainwaves (intervention), or random engineered tones not linked to brainwaves (sham control). All participants rested comfortably in a zero-gravity chair in the dark with eyes closed and listened to the computer-generated tones via earbud-style headphones. The primary outcome was change in symptom scores, with secondary outcomes of heart rate variability and self-reported measures of sleep, mood, and anxiety.

Among all study participants, symptom scores clinically and statistically improved compared with baseline, with benefits largely sustained at 3 months and 6 months; however, there were no significant differences between the intervention and control groups. Similar patterns were observed for secondary outcomes.

The results indicate that although acoustic stimulation is associated with marked improvement in postconcussive symptoms, listening to acoustic stimulation based on brain electrical activity, as it was delivered in this study, may not improve symptoms, brain function, or heart rate variability more than randomly generated, computer engineered acoustic stimulation.

"Postconcussive symptoms have proven very difficult to treat, and the degree of improvement seen in this study is virtually unheard of, though further research is needed to identify what elements are key to its success," said corresponding author Michael J. Roy, MD, MPH, of Uniformed Services University and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda.

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acn3.51937

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Journal/
conference: Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of North Carolina, USA

Funder: This study was supported by a research grant from, Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP). Infrastructure for data collection and management was supported by UL1TR001420.

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