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18 Headlines Dr Searchfield is a primary investigator in the University of Auckland’s Centre for Brain Research and clinical director of the University’s Hearing and Tinnitus Clinic. His research lab has developed a smartphone-based digital therapy that uses relief, relaxation and attention-focused strategies to rewire the brain. Results from a trial, published in Frontiers in Neurology , has shown clinically-significant improvements in patients who used the app for 12 weeks. “We’ve tested drugs in New Zealand and overseas, but the real success has been developing this digital therapeutic. It could be considered a prescription of a device and software instead of a pill,” Dr Searchfield says. The digital therapy is a typical example of how small research projects completed over time can lead to successful treatments as new technologies become available. “Translating research to practice has always been my goal, and the foundations were there 10 years ago, but I didn’t anticipate the advances in technology that have enabled this therapy to become a reality,” Dr Searchfield says. One of the foundational projects that led to the digital therapy was a 2010 small project grant from the Neurological Foundation. The grant was for a study that combined hearing aids with low-level electrical stimulation of the brain. It found hearing aids to have some success in treating tinnitus, but not electrical stimulation. Fast-forward to today, the hearing aids have been replaced with Bluetooth and the electrical stimulation with personalised therapy, as researchers shift away from one-size-fits-all treatments. “For me, it helped reinforce the power of hearing aids and helped us to focus on developing the best treatments for tinnitus. It shows how a small investment can have big research outcomes of different types. “As is common with small project grants, the work was the beginning of several years of research resulting in multiple publications and student research projects,” Dr Searchfield says. For instance, the equipment was used by Giriraj Shekhawat in his PhD. He is now a Professor in Audiology at Flinders University in Adelaide. And new frontiers of technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality are being used to develop tinnitus treatments at the University of Auckland and AUT. “A huge proportion of people experience tinnitus and a substantial portion suffer with it. We need more investment in tinnitus research and more tinnitus clinicians,” Dr Searchfield says. “While we can’t cure tinnitus yet, we have the technology to halve it or almost completely take it away – the next best thing.” The digital therapeutic is being made available through a University spin-out company, TrueSilence Therapeutics. www.truesilencetherapeutics.com. ABOUT TINNITUS Tinnitus is the phantom perception of sound. It is estimated to affect a staggering 400,000 New Zealanders. That’s about one in 12 people! Severe tinnitus can affect concentration, interfere with hearing, disrupt sleep and increase anxiety and depression. It often follows a slight hearing loss when the brain tries to make sense of changed hearing and responds by reorganising and increasing activity in different brain regions. TEN YEARS ON A “digital pill” for tinnitus Associate Professor Grant Searchfield began working on a treatment for tinnitus 20 years ago. Back then, he couldn’t have predicted how a mobile phone app would deliver a breakthrough he had hoped for. “While we can’t cure tinnitus yet, we have the technology to halve it or almost completely take it away – the next best thing.”