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January 17, 2012

After enduring the explosive sounds of war in Iraq, you might think Allen Vaught would value silence, but he rarely has it.

Vaught hears sound on and off every day without warning.

"Sometimes it will last for several minutes. Sometimes it's for a few seconds. Usually it's daily, often many times a day," he said.

Studies show up to half of all U.S. veterans returning from war suffer from what's called tinnitus. It's an invisible injury that can be debilitating and has no cure.

"Sometimes it's so overwhelming you can't focus or you can't communicate, you can't sleep," Vaught said.

A small, Dallas-based company though, believes it's close to a fix. Will Rosellini leads Microtransponder. It is planning clinical trials in 2012 on an implantable device that retrains the brain to stop hearing the ringing.

"They're considered crazy. The ringing is so bad they can't function, but they can't prove they actually have it," Rosellini said.

This wasn't an idea that was hatched up somewhere in a science lab, it was an idea that came to Rosellini out on the baseball field. The former professional pitcher's control struggles on the mound got him thinking.

"The difference between me and Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens isn't muscles or skeleton, it's my nervous system," Rosellini said.

Six graduate degrees later, he had 18 scientists together working on future solutions to not just tinnitus, but stroke recovery, post-traumatic stress and chronic pain. In its first trial, tinnitus disappeared for 75 percent of the patients who used it. For veterans like Allen Vaught, it could be the cure to the war injury no one sees or hears but the victim.

"We've been overwhelmed with tinnitus patients saying, you've given me hope to keep going," Vaught said.

Microtransponder expects to hold trials in the U.S. and Belgium. If they are successful the company will seek Food and Drug Administration approval for its device in 2014.