Scientists Identified a Biological Signature of Tinnitus, And It's in Your Blood
NEWS | 08 November 2026
For the millions worldwide with tinnitus, silence never comes. The condition, estimated to affect 15 percent of people globally, produces the perception of persistent ringing and other phantom sounds. We've never known for sure what causes tinnitus, and we've also never had a reliable objective biomarker or test for it. Until now, the only way doctors could diagnose the condition was if you told them you heard sounds that weren't there. But that could be set to change. In a new study published in Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, scientists report what could be the strongest evidence yet of a biomarker candidate for tinnitus. "We now have proof-of-concept that an ear protein may play a central role in the development and management of tinnitus," says otolaryngologist Kourosh Parham from the University of Connecticut. frameborder="0″ allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen> In an experiment with 82 adults – half of whom experienced tinnitus – blood tests revealed that a protein called prestin appears to be linked to the condition. The research, building upon an earlier study by some of the same team, found that people with tinnitus showed blood concentrations of prestin that were about 50 percent higher than participants without the condition. Prestin is a motor protein found in the membranes of outer hair cells that line the cochlea. It helps to amplify sounds and is crucial for sensitive hearing. But previous research has linked prestin to hearing damage, raising the possibility that changes in this protein could affect the healthy functioning of the inner ear, potentially contributing to the phantom sounds experienced by people with tinnitus. Studies have shown that prestin levels are influenced by noise exposure, age, and hearing loss, and experimental models of hearing damage show that prestin levels are altered by trauma, suggesting the protein could be a biomarker for cochlear injury. For several years, it's been known that an overdose of aspirin can induce hearing problems by disrupting cochlear functions, and prestin is one of the proteins affected. Now, we're getting more evidence of its association to tinnitus, but there's still a lot we don't know. This was only a small observational study, and the findings for now don't prove that high prestin levels trigger tinnitus. All we know is they're somehow linked to the condition, but as the researchers acknowledge, it's likely that other factors could also contribute to tinnitus. It's also worth noting that while the study showed that high prestin levels were linked to tinnitus, a separate diagnostic accuracy analysis suggested that the biomarker can't yet reliably be used as a tool to diagnose tinnitus, at least based on the sample of participants studied here. As the researchers point out, it's possible that might be because some of the participants here had a form of non-cochlear tinnitus, caused by something other than prestin abnormalities. Future research might be able to clear that up. For now, we've got a strong clue that prestin is involved in the condition, and it's a research lead that could help us get towards a diagnostic system for clinical settings, and maybe even in terms of one day treating tinnitus too. "Our work now says there is promise in using prestin as a biomarker for tinnitus," Parham says. "This is our first step to developing drugs to help manage tinnitus." The findings are reported in Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.
Author: Peter Dockrill.
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