Tinnitus answer may be found in our blood

By Mike McRae

October 07, 2026

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Biomarkers could make addressing tinnitus faster and easier

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For the 14% of us living with tinnitus, the persistent ringing inside our heads is impossible for anybody else to hear. Or measure. A new study suggests a blood test for an inner-ear protein could provide a sign of the condition that anybody can detect and then act on.

Researchers at the University of Connecticut found that people with chronic tinnitus had significantly higher blood levels of a protein called prestin than people without tinnitus.

The finding adds to evidence that a dysfunctional cochlea – the snail-shaped structure in the inner ear – could play a role in at least some cases of tinnitus, and raises the potential of using prestin as a biomarker for the frustrating condition.

“Our work now says there is promise in using prestin as a biomarker for tinnitus. This is our first step to developing drugs to help manage tinnitus,” says University of Connecticut otologist, Kourosh Parham.

Prestin is a protein found in specialised hair cells that amplify sound vibrations within the cochlea, helping to fine-tune our hearing. These cells change length in response to sound, with prestin acting as a kind of molecular motor in their membranes.

Previous research has shown that prestin can enter the bloodstream and that blood levels can change in response to damage or stress affecting the inner ear. Parham and his colleagues wondered whether tinnitus might also be reflected in circulating prestin.

Their recently published study involved 82 people: 41 with chronic, bilateral, non-pulsatile tinnitus, and 41 controls without a history of the condition.

Participants underwent hearing tests and wore noise dosimeters for a week to measure their daily sound exposure before providing blood samples. The researchers measured prestin alongside three other proteins associated with the inner ear: otoferlin, connexin 26, and stereocilin.

Prestin was the only protein that clearly distinguished the tinnitus group from the controls.

Average blood prestin concentrations were tiny – a mere 330 picograms per milliliter higher in samples from people with tinnitus. Yet once the researchers accounted for differences in factors such as age, hearing ability, and daily noise exposure, the difference was significant enough to serve as an objective clue.

The researchers also found that prestin levels were higher among tinnitus participants whose hearing thresholds were similar to those of the control group, suggesting the result wasn’t simply a consequence of hearing loss.

Before you bug your doctor for a blood test, the method wasn’t accurate enough to be as reliable as we’d like for a diagnosis. Prestin levels also didn’t rise with the severity of people’s symptoms. Most participants had relatively mild tinnitus, with a typical symptom score in the mild range of 24 out of a top “catastrophic” score of 78 to 100.

There is also an important question concerning exactly where the prestin in the blood originates. While it is strongly associated with the inner ear, the protein isn’t exclusive to the organ and has also been detected in other tissues, including the heart.

The researchers say the findings therefore don’t prove that tinnitus originates in the cochlea. Tinnitus can involve both peripheral mechanisms in the ear and changes within the central auditory system, and the study could not distinguish between these possibilities.

Still, the results provide another piece of evidence linking outer hair cell function with tinnitus.

They also add to findings from an earlier study by the same group, which found elevated levels of a particular form of serum prestin in 49 people with chronic tinnitus compared with 40 controls. That study used a different technique to measure the protein.

Taken together, the researchers say the results provide proof of concept for prestin as a tinnitus biomarker.

“We now have proof-of-concept that an ear protein may play a central role in the development and management of tinnitus,” says Parham.

Larger studies will be needed to establish whether the test can reliably identify tinnitus, distinguish different forms of the condition, or eventually help doctors determine which treatments are most likely to work.

For a condition that doctors currently have to assess largely through what patients report hearing, however, even an imperfect biological signal could prove valuable.

This research was published in the journal Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery

Source: UConn Health

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Long-Acting Injectable Therapy in the Management of Adult Patients with Schizophrenia|

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Reframing Long-Acting Injectable Antipsychotics as a Path to Patient Autonomy

Author(s)Christoph U. Correll, MD

Christoph U. Correll, MD, says prescriber discomfort, more than patient factors, drives low LAI use in schizophrenia, and urges clinicians to present injectables as support for autonomy.

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At the 2026 Jersey City Psychiatry Conference, event chair Christoph U. Correll, MD, professor of psychiatry and molecular medicine at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and professor and chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, spoke about why long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics remain underused in schizophrenia despite strong evidence behind them.

Across randomized trials, cohort studies, and meta-analyses, LAIs have outperformed oral antipsychotics in preventing relapse and hospitalization.¹ Correll said the benefit comes from better adherence and from making nonadherence visible. Patients who stay stable can then function better and work toward their own goals.

Barriers on the Prescriber Side

Correll said clinicians may hesitate because they are uncomfortable with needles or with giving injections. Some also worry that offering an LAI tells the patient they are not trusted or takes away their autonomy.

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Wide Variation in Use

In the United States, the share of patients with schizophrenia receiving an LAI ranges from under 5% to 22%, depending on the state. “The patients are the same,” Correll said. The difference, he said, lies with prescribers: whether they feel comfortable offering the choice and following through with psychoeducation.

Dr Correll is professor at the Institute of Behavioral Science, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research; medical director of the Recognition and Prevention Program in the Department of Psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital; and professor of Psychiatry and Molecular Medicine at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell.

References

1. Kishimoto T, Hagi K, Kurokawa S, et al. Long-acting injectable versus oral antipsychotics for the maintenance treatment of schizophrenia: a systematic review and comparative meta-analysis of randomised, cohort, and pre-post studies. Lancet Psychiatry. 2021;8(5):387-404.

2. Correll CU, Citrome L, Haddad PM, et al. The use of long-acting injectable antipsychotics in schizophrenia: evaluating the evidence. J Clin Psychiatry. 2016;77(suppl 3):1-24.

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2001

U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan begins

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Published: July 20, 2010 Last Updated: October 02, 2026

On October 7, 2001, a U.S.-led coalition begins attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with an intense bombing campaign by American and British forces. Other nations including France, Germany, Australia and Canada provide logistical support, and later, the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance rebels provide troops.

The invasion of Afghanistan was the opening salvo in the United States “war on terror” and a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The conflict in Afghanistan ultimately spanned two decades and became the longest war in U.S. history.

Dubbed “Operation Enduring Freedom” in U.S. military parlance, the invasion of Afghanistan was intended to target terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization, which was based in the country, as well as the extreme fundamentalist Taliban government that had ruled most of the country since 1996 and supported and protected al-Qaeda.

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The Taliban, which had imposed its extremist version of Islam on the entire country, also perpetrated countless human rights abuses against its people, especially women, girls and ethnic Hazaras. During their rule, large numbers of Afghans lived in utter poverty, and as many as 4 million Afghans are thought to have suffered from starvation.

In the weeks prior to the invasion, both the United States and the U.N. Security Council had demanded that the Taliban turn over Osama bin Laden for prosecution. After deeming the Taliban’s counteroffers unsatisfactory—among them to try bin Laden in an Islamic court—the invasion began with an aerial bombardment of Taliban and al-Qaeda installations in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Konduz and Mazar-e-Sharif. Other coalition planes flew in airdrops of humanitarian supplies for Afghan civilians. The Taliban called the actions “an attack on Islam.”

After the air campaign softened Taliban defenses, the coalition began a ground invasion, with Northern Alliance forces providing most of the troops and the United States and other nations giving air and ground support. On November 12, a little over a month after the military action began, Taliban officials and their forces retreated from the capital of Kabul. By early December, Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold, had fallen, and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar went into hiding rather than surrender.

Al-Qaeda fighters continued to hide out in Afghanistan’s mountainous Tora Bora region, where they were engaged by anti-Taliban Afghan forces, backed by U.S. Special Forces troops. Al-Qaeda soon initiated a truce, which is now believed to have been a ploy to allow Osama bin Laden and other key al-Qaeda members time to escape into neighboring Pakistan. By mid-December, the bunker and cave complex that al-Qaeda used at Tora Bora had been captured, but there was no sign of bin Laden. Following a 10-year manhunt, bin Laden was finally found and killed in Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALS on May 2, 2011.

After Tora Bora, a grand council of Afghan tribal leaders and former exiles was convened under the leadership of Hamid Karzai, who first served as interim leader before becoming the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan on December 7, 2004. Even as Afghanistan began to take the first steps toward democracy, however, with more than 10,000 U.S. troops in country, al-Qaeda and Taliban forces began to regroup in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over the next decade-plus, they continued to engage U.S. and Afghan troops in guerilla-style warfare and were also responsible for the deaths of elected government officials and aid workers and the kidnapping of foreigners. Despite a peace agreement signed between the Taliban and U.S. forces in February 2020, hostilities on both sides continued.

In April 2021, President Joe Biden—who, like his previous two predecessors, pledged to end the war in Afghanistan—set the deadline of September 11, 2021, as the date of full U.S. withdrawal, with the final drawdown effort to begin in May. By early August of that year, the Taliban began retaking the country. On August 15, 2021, the capital of Kabul fell to Taliban forces, and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled to the UAE. Following the collapse of the Afghan government and Taliban victory, on August 31, 2021, President Biden declared the war in Afghanistan officially over.

During the 20-year conflict, more than 3,500 allied soldiers were killed, with 20,000-plus Americans injured. Approximately 69,000 Afghan security forces were killed, along with roughly 51,000 civilians and 51,000 militants. According to the United Nations, some 5 million Afghans have been displaced by the war since 2012, making Afghanistan the world’s third-largest displaced population.

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