There are few studies on misophonia that have been published. However, this body of literature is always growing.
Our Academic Articles
Investigating Misophonia: A Review of the Empirical Literature, Clinical Implications, and a Research Agenda
Misophonia is a neurobehavioral syndrome phenotypically characterized by heightened autonomic nervous system arousal and negative emotional reactivity (e. g., irritation, anger, anxiety) in response to a decreased tolerance for specific sounds. The aims of this review are to (a) characterize the current state of the field of research on misophonia, (b) highlight what can be inferred from the small research literature to inform treatment of individuals with misophonia, and (c) outline an agenda for research on this topic. We extend previous reviews on this topic by critically reviewing the research investigating mechanisms of misophonia and differences between misophonia and other conditions. In addition, we integrate this small but growing literature with basic and applied research from other literatures in a cross-disciplinary manner […Read Full Article]
Sensory reactivity, empathizing and systemizing in autism spectrum conditions and sensory processing disorder.
Although the DSM-5 added sensory symptoms as a criterion for ASC, there is a group of children who display sensory symptoms but do not have ASC; children with sensory processing disorder (SPD). To be able to differentiate these two disorders, our aim was to evaluate whether children with ASC show more sensory symptomatology and/or different cognitive styles in empathy and systemizing compared to children with SPD and typically developing (TD) children. The study included 210 participants: 68 children with ASC, 79 with SPD and 63 TD children. The Sensory Processing Scale Inventory was used to measure sensory symptoms, the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) to measure autistic traits, and the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ) to measure cognitive styles. Across groups, a greater sensory symptomatology was associated with lower empathy. Further, both the ASC and SPD groups showed more sensory symptoms than TD children. Children with ASC and SPD only differed on sensory under-reactivity. The ASD group did, however, show lower empathy and higher systemizing scores than the SPD group. Together, this suggest that sensory symptoms alone may not be adequate to differentiate children with ASC and SPD but that cognitive style measures could be used for differential diagnosis.
Academic Articles/Papers by IMRN Members
Brett-Green, B. A., Miller, L. J., Schoen, S. A., and Nielsen, D. M. (2010). An exploratory event-related potential study of multisensory integration in sensory over-responsive children. Brain Res. 1321, 67–77. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2010.01.043
Danesh, A. A., and Kaf, W. A. (2012). DPOAEs and contralateral acoustic stimulation and their link to sound hypersensitivity in children with autism. Int. J. Audiol. 51, 345–352. doi: 10.3109/14992027.2011.626202
Edelstein, M., Brang, D., Rouw, R., and Ramachandran, V. S. (2013). Misophonia: physiological investigations and case descriptions. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 7:296. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00296
“Using memory reconsolidating LeDoux and colleagues have already proven that the automatic physiological response to a stimuli (or a memory in regard to sound in misophonia) can be changed in simple ways. Whereas most behavior therapists rely on exposure to aversive stimuli in order to desensitize people to trauma (in this case a noise, pattern of sound, or repeating noise) or to relearn an association between a sound and a particular person, etc. they are often unable to obtain results, and if they do obtain results, they don’t last. This is because of memory.”
Rosenthal, M. Z., Neacsiu, A. D., and Geiger, P. J. (2016). Emotional reactivity to personally-relevant and standardized sounds in borderline personality disorder. Cogn. Ther. Res. 40, 314–327. doi: 10.1007/s10608-015-9736-y
Rouw, R., and Erfanian, M. (2017). A large-scale study of misophonia. J. Clin. Psychol. doi: 10.1002/jclp.22500. [Epub ahead of print].
Kumar, S., Hancock, O. T., Sedley, W., Winston, J. S., Callaghan, M. F., Allen, M., et al. (2017). The brain basis for misophonia. Curr. Biol. 27, 527–533. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.12.048
Kumar, S., von Kriegstein, K., Friston, K., and Griffiths, T. D. (2012). Features versus feelings: dissociable representations of the acoustic features and valence of aversive sounds. J. Neurosci. 32, 14184–14192. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1759-12.2012
Schoen, S. A., Miller, L. J., Brett-Green, B. A., and Nielsen, D. M. (2009). Physiological and behavioral differences in sensory processing: a comparison of children with autism spectrum disorder and sensory modulation disorder. Front. Integr. Neurosci.3:29. doi: 10.3389/neuro.07.029.2009
Schröder, A. E., Vulink, N. C., van Loon, A. J., and Denys, D. A. (2017). Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective in misophonia: an open trial. J. Affect. Disord. 217, 289–294. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2017.04.017
Schröder, A., van Diepen, R., Mazaheri, A., Petropoulos-Petalas, D., de Amesti, V., Vulink, N., et al. (2014). Diminished n1 auditory evoked potentials to oddball stimuli in misophonia patients. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 8:123. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00123
Schröder, A., Vulink, N., and Denys, D. (2013). Misophonia: diagnostic criteria for a new psychiatric disorder. PLoS ONE8:e54706. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054706
Meltzer, J., and Herzfeld, M. (2014). “Tinnitus, hyperacusis, and misophonia toolbox,” in Seminars in Hearing, Vol. 35 (New York, NY: Thieme Medical Publishers), 121–130.
Sullivan, J. C., Miller, L. J., Nielsen, D. M., and Schoen, S. A. (2013). The presence of migraines and its association with sensory hyperreactivity and anxiety symptomatology in children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism 18, 743–747. doi: 10.1177/1362361313489377
LeDoux, J. (2015). Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety. New York, NY: Penguin.
Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
Other Notable Papers
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edn. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Attias, J., Bleich, A., Furman, V., and Zinger, Y. (1996). Event-related potentials in post-traumatic stress disorder of combat origin. Biol. Psychiatry 40, 373–381. doi: 10.1016/0006-3223(95)00419-X
Bernstein, R. E., Angell, K. L., and Dehle, C. M. (2013). A brief course of cognitive behavioural therapy for the treatment of misophonia: a case example. Cogn. Behav. Ther. 6:e10. doi: 10.1017/S1754470X13000172
Cavanna, A. E., and Seri, S. (2015). Misophonia: current perspectives. Neuropsychiatr. Dis. Treat. 11, 2117–2123. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S81438
Ferreira, G. M., Harrison, B. J., and Fontenelle, L. F. (2013). Hatred of sounds: misophonic disorder or just an underreported psychiatric symptom? Ann. Clin. Psychiatry 25, 271–274.
Green, S. A., and Ben-Sasson, A. (2010). Anxiety disorders and sensory over-responsivity in children with autism spectrum disorders: is there a causal relationship? J. Autism Dev. Disord. 40, 1495–1504. doi: 10.1007/s10803-010-1007-
Jastreboff, M. M., and Jastreboff, P. J. (2001). Components of decreased sound tolerance: hyperacusis, misophonia, phonophobia. ITHS News Lett. 2, 5–7.
Johnson, P. L., Webber, T. A., Wu, M. S., Lewin, A. B., Murphy, T. K., and Storch, E. A. (2013). When selective audiovisual stimuli become unbearable: a case series on pediatric misophonia. Neuropsychiatry 3, 569–575. doi: 10.2217/npy.13.70
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Kliuchko, M., Heinonen-Guzejev, M., Vuust, P., Tervaniemi, M., and Brattico, E. (2016). A window into the brain mechanisms associated with noise sensitivity. Sci. Rep. 6:39236. doi: 10.1038/srep39236
Kliuchko, M., Puoliväli, T., Heinonen-Guzejev, M., Tervaniemi, M., Toiviainen, P., Sams, M., et al. (2017). Neuroanatomical substrate of noise sensitivity. Neuroimage 167, 309–315. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.11.041
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Lane, S. J., Reynolds, S., and Dumenci, L. (2012). Sensory overresponsivity and anxiety in typically developing children and children with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: cause or coexistence? Am. J. Occup. Ther. 66, 595–603. doi: 10.5014/ajot.2012.004523
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McGuire, J. F., Wu, M. S., and Storch, E. A. (2015). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for 2 youths with misophonia. J. Clin. Psychiatry 76, 573–574. doi: 10.4088/JCP.14cr09343
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Neal, M., and Cavanna, A. E. (2013). Selective sound sensitivity syndrome (misophonia) in a patient with Tourette syndrome. J. Neuropsychiatr. Clin. Neurosci. 25, E01–E01. doi: 10.1176/appi.neuropsych.11100235
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Stefanics, G., Kremlácek, J., and Czigler, I. (2014). Visual mismatch negativity: a predictive coding view. Front. Hum. Neurosci.8:666. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00666
Taylor, S. (2017). Misophonia: a new mental disorder?. Med. Hypotheses 103, 109–117. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2017.05.003
Tyler, R. S., Pienkowski, M., Roncancio, E. R., Jun, H. J., Brozoski, T., Dauman, N., et al. (2014). A review of hyperacusis and future directions: part I. Definitions and manifestations. Am. J. Audiol. 23, 402–419. doi: 10.1044/2014_AJA-14-0010
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Webber, T. A., Johnson, P. L., and Storch, E. A. (2014). Pediatric misophonia with comorbid obsessive–compulsive spectrum disorders. Gen. Hosp. Psychiatry 36, 231-e1. doi: 10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2013.10.018
Wu, M. S., Lewin, A. B., Murphy, T. K., and Storch, E. A. (2014). Misophonia: incidence, phenomenology, and clinical correlates in an undergraduate student sample. J. Clin. Psychol. 70, 994–1007. doi: 10.1002/jclp.22098
Yadon, C. A., Bugg, J. M., Kisley, M. A., and Davalos, D. B. (2009). P50 sensory gating is related to performance on select tasks of cognitive inhibition. Cogn. Affect. Behav. Neurosci. 9, 448–458. doi: 10.3758/CABN.9.4.448
Zhou, X., Wu, M. S., and Storch, E. A. (2017). Misophonia symptoms among Chinese university students: incidence, associated impairment, and clinical correlates. J. Obsess. Compuls. Relat. Disord. 14, 7–12. doi: 10.1016/j.jocrd.2017.05.001