Overview of the Working Groups

In this COST network, for the first time guidelines for the recruitment and the clinical and audiological assessment of tinnitus patients and controls as well as standards for neuroimaging and outcome measurement will be established.

Clinical data in tinnitus patients and controls as well as environmental factors (hearing impairment, stress, trauma), results from neuroimaging and genetic investigations will be collected according standardized procedures in a database.

Previous genetics endeavours in complex disease have shown that uniform sample recruitment standards and detailed phenotyping as well as appropriate endophenotyping using intermediate traits are an inevitable prerequisite to succeed. These tools will be developed by specialized working groups in this Action.

Five different workgroups have been established which focus on the following objectives

1. Clinical and audiological assessment of tinnitus patients according to common standards
2. Data management in a central database and identification of subtype candidates
3. Developing standards for neuroimaging studies and probing the neurobiological entity of the defined subtypes by large-scale analyses of neuroimaging data
4. Identifying the involvement of genetic factors in the pathogenesis of the different subtypes of tinnitus
5. Development of standards for outcome measurements in clinical trials and central data collection

Each WG is beeing chaired by a Coordinator (Working Group Leader) and a Co-coordinator who who have been elected by the MC during its first meeting. Coordinator and Co-coordinators are responsible for the coordination, organization and supervision of their WG’s meetings. Each WG assigns Local Organizers for each meeting. The composition of all Working Groups will be interdisciplinary.