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Misophonia: Scientists Crack Why Eating Sounds Can Make People Angry (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Why some people become enraged by sounds such as eating or breathing has been explained by brain scan studies. The condition, misophonia, is far more than simply disliking noises such as nails being scraped down a blackboard. UK scientists have shown some people's brains become hardwired to produce an "excessive" emotional response. Olana developed the condition when she was eight years old. Her trigger sounds include breathing, eating and rustling noises. Scientists, including Olana, at multiple centers in the UK scanned the brains of 20 misophonic people and 22 people without the condition. They were played a range of noises while they were in the MRI machine, including: neutral sounds such as rain; generally unpleasant sounds such as screaming; people's trigger sounds. The results, published in the journal Current Biology, revealed the part of the brain that joins our senses with our emotions -- the anterior insular cortex -- was overly active in misophonia. And it was wired up and connected to other parts of the brain differently in those with misophonia. Dr Sukhbinder Kumar, from Newcastle University, told BBC News: "They are going into overdrive when they hear these sounds, but the activity was specific to the trigger sounds not the other two sounds. The reaction is anger mostly, it's not disgust, the dominating emotion is the anger -- it looks like a normal response, but then it is going into overdrive." There are no treatments, but Olana has developed coping mechanisms such as using ear plugs. It is still not clear how common the disorder is, as there is no clear way of diagnosing it and it was only recently discovered. Ultimately, the researchers hope, understanding the difference in the misophonic brain will lead to new treatments. One idea is that low levels of targeted electricity passed through the skull, which is known to adjust brain function, could help.
I was having a discussion with someone the other day (who you very well might be able to dox since he was one of the primary patients for the Canadian study on this, with one of the worse cases of Misophonia known.)
It appears to run in my own family along the male line, ranging from eating noises (my father) to a variety of vocal triggers mostly limited to my immediate family (most likely picked up when I was little during the period I spent the most time around them.)
While mine and my father's are controllable (although having triggered sessions of physical conflict between us!) the friend mentioned above have a broader range of noises that caused this effect in him, to the point of causing PTSD from people torturing him with the sounds.
Just because something isn't a big deal for you doesn't mean it isn't a hugely debilitating disease for other people. Sometimes there are available means to limit or mitigate the effects of them, but without focusing research on them the problem won't be better understood, and may result in people who really don't deserve it having social, legal, personal, etc problems because their condition isn't discernable as a debilitating neurological disorder. And the more of these disorders we understand, the better will we be able to understand our genes, our minds, and other impulses throughout our body. Narrowminded atiitudes like yours are what have been holding back ventures into science and technologies that 'obviously have no merit'.
I get furious just when eating. (This tendency is well-constrained by a vanishing tradition called 'table manners'). My theory (watch wildlife) is that creatures are most vulnerable while preoccupied with eating/drinking, so paranoia and watchfulness naturally rises then. If so, objecting to others audibly too close alongside is probably a simple displacement of an instinctive trait.
The summary says: "There are no treatments". That is quite strange, since last year I've seen news reports that said treatment for this exact problem was possible and often quite effective. As I remember, it was basically psychological training to associate the infuriating sounds with a non-infuriating thought. For example: if the thought of a rabbit eating a carrot does not anger the patient, then whenever he feels a surge of anger from hearing a nearby person eating an apple, he is to think of the harmless rabbit until the flash of anger has subsided. Probably easier said than done, but still, actual patients were saying it worked pretty well for them.