Your 6-year-old yawns and it triggers a fight-or-flight reaction in you. You hear your spouse breathing nearby and you instantly get angry. You avoid restaurants because you can’t stand the sound of chewing. Sounds other people don’t even seem to notice drive you up a wall.
What is misophonia?
Misophonia is a real disorder that seriously compromises functioning, socializing, and mental health.
- Affected emotionally by common sounds, usually those made by others and usually ones that other people don’t pay attention to
- Usually appears around age 12, and likely affects more people than we realize
What causes misophonia?
Misophonia can be caused by exposure to certain sounds (e.g. eating and breathing) or neutral sounds (such as rain).
- In a study, a British-based research team studied 20 adults with and 22 without it.
- They all rated the unpleasantness of different sounds, including common trigger sounds (eating and breathing), universally disturbing sounds (of babies crying and people screaming), and neutral sounds such as rain.
The brain science of misophonia
The team’s important finding was in a part of the brain that plays a role both in anger and in integrating outside inputs (such as sounds) with inputs from organs such as the heart and lungs: the anterior insular cortex (AIC).
- Using fMRI scans to measure brain activity, the researchers found that the AIC caused much more activity in other brain regions during the trigger sounds for those with misophobia than for the control group.
- This demonstrates that these brain regions are the ones responsible for the experience of Misophonia.
