Abstract
Misophonia (hatred of sound) is a newly defined psychiatric condition in which ordinary human sounds, such as breathing and eating, trigger impulsive aggression. In the current study, we investigated if a dysfunction in the brain’s early auditory processing system could be present in misophonia. We screened 20 patients with misophonia with the diagnostic criteria for misophonia, and 14 matched healthy controls without misophonia, and investigated any potential deficits in auditory processing of misophonia patients using auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) during an oddball task. Subjects watched a neutral silent movie while being presented a regular frequency of beep sounds in which oddball tones of 250 and 4000 Hz were randomly embedded in a stream of repeated 1000 Hz standard tones. We examined the P1, N1, and P2 components locked to the onset of the tones. For misophonia patients, the N1 peak evoked by the oddball tones had smaller mean peak amplitude than the control group. However, no significant differences were found in P1 and P2 components evoked by the oddball tones. There were no significant differences between the misophonia patients and their controls in any of the ERP components to the standard tones. The diminished N1 component to oddball tones in misophonia patients suggests an underlying neurobiological deficit in misophonia patients. This reduction might reflect a basic impairment in auditory processing in misophonia patients.
Highlights
Misophonia is a newly defined psychiatric condition, which is characterized by the hatred of ordinary human sounds (Hadjipavlou et al, 2008; Schwartz et al, 2011; Edelstein et al, 2013; Ferreira and Harrison, 2013; Neal and Cavanna, 2013; Schröder et al, 2013)
EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS Figures 1 and 2 show the grand-average event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by standard (Figure 1) and deviant tones (Figure 2) in the same electrodes used for the statistical analyses
We found that the mean amplitude of the auditory N1 was significantly diminished in misophonia patients compared to healthy controls
Summary
Misophonia is a newly defined psychiatric condition, which is characterized by the hatred of ordinary human sounds (Hadjipavlou et al, 2008; Schwartz et al, 2011; Edelstein et al, 2013; Ferreira and Harrison, 2013; Neal and Cavanna, 2013; Schröder et al, 2013). There has been no neurophysiological marker linked with this disorder Such a marker could potentially benefit the recognition of misophonia patients and give directions to further neurophysiological research in this domain. Our aim was to explore if the pathophysiology of this disorder manifested itself in some dysfunction of the auditory processing system. This was carried out by examining differences in specific components of the auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) between misophonia patients and controls, elicited by pure tones in an oddball paradigm
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
