(calm music)
- Okay, go with me here and it's okay to admit this.
Do you want to strangle people
who chew with their mouths open?
Does the sound of slurping noodles drive you a little mad?
Okay, what about chewing gum or heavy breathing
or frequent sighing like uh or chronic snoring?
That gets me.
If so, you might just have misophonia and you aren't alone
but what is this exactly?
There's still a lot of questions
about this relatively new diagnosis
but we do know that some sounds
drive certain people acutely bonkers
and I'm not talking about a slight annoyance
or getting kind of irritated.
I'm talking about having certain sounds
trigger powerful, profound and intense feelings
that range from panic and anxiety
to anger and even weirdly enough arousal.
So if ordinary irritation would be a three
on the one to 10 scale then this stuff is more of a 12
or if you ask someone who actually has misophonia,
it's a two million.
The list of trigger sounds goes on and on.
It could be plosive Ps.
Those are the sounds like pop or platypus.
Kiss noises.
A plastic bag crinkling and even just pouring water.
All of these can make a misophonia sufferer furious.
So what's going on here?
What's making them this way?
The term misophonia means hatred of sound
and it was made by two neuroscientists,
Pawel and Margaret Jastreboff.
Most experts believe that misophonia
is a neurological problem
rather than a problem with an individual's hearing system.
So in 2013, Dr. Judith Krauthamer
argued that the problem could be traced back
to areas of the brain called the insular cortex
and the anterior cingulate cortex.
Dysfunctional assessment of the neurosignals in the brain
triggers this intense discomfort.
Though there are competing views
about the causes of misophonia,
a doctor named Aage R. Moller believes that the dysfunction
is in the central nervous system,
that it's hardwired in people
and it's a physiological abnormality
rather than just an auditory disorder.
Now, Pawel Jastreboff believes that people
cannot be born with misophonia
but that there might be a genetic factor in the mix somehow.
Currently, experts think it develops in late childhood
and early adolescence
and that the condition worsens over time.
However, if you have misophonia,
the volume of your trigger sound, whatever it is,
probably doesn't matter.
Misophonia can develop from a range of possible factors
and patients with other audio disorders
can also develop this condition.
So according to audiologist, Myriam Westcott,
tinnitus sufferers can also develop misophonia over time.
Westcott argues that some of the causes for misophonia
can include stuff like an obsession with sounds
that irritated or scared you in childhood
and that points to a possible psychological factor.
So if we put all of this together
then it seems that experts agree on a few things.
One, people with misophonia aren't just cranky (beep).
They actually have no control over the reaction.
Two, misophonia develops over time.
Three, it's probably caused by multiple factors
and there's a little bit of bad news here.
At this point, there's no universally recognized
and effective treatment for misophonia
so if you're like me and the sound of snoring
and smacking and other mouth noises turns you into a monster
then you will be glad to know
that research on misophonia continues as we speak.
Organizations in the UK have launched Misophonia Monday
to raise awareness about this condition
but wait, you might be saying,
what about nails on a chalkboard?
Well, that's something totally different
and it's a story for another day
because Casey, that weird breathing thing you're doing
is driving me insane.
Just cut it.
We'll do the outro.
Alright, that's it.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope that you enjoyed this episode
and feel free to give us some more recommendations
for other things to cover in the future.
You can find us on Facebook.
We're all over Twitter.
We even have our own website, brainstuffshow.com.
(calm music)