Oct. 21, 2024 | Ethan Simmons
By ETHAN SIMMONS
Food-slurping, knuckle-cracking, pen-tapping, nose-sniffling. All these noises can trigger strong emotional responses for people living with misophonia, or sensitivity to specific, often human-generated sounds.
Misophonia is a newly recognized hearing condition—the term was first coined in 2001—and its exact mechanics, and boundaries, remain mysterious.
To investigate the potential causes of misophonia, two University of Illinois researchers, Speech and Hearing Science Professor Fatima Husain from the College of Applied Health Sciences and Psychology Professor Howard Berenbaum from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, are pairing up to study misophonic triggers across three different cultures.
“Are the ‘trigger sounds’ the same in the three countries?” Husain asked. “What is the psychological impact on the individual and their family across the different countries?”
With a near-$500,000 award from the Misophonia Research Fund, the researchers are actively recruiting to conduct psychological and audiological assessments for 100 people diagnosed with misophonia in Seoul, South Korea; another 100 in Sâo Paulo, Brazil; and 100 more within a 150-mile radius of Champaign, Illinois.
After the assessments, participants are exposed to a variety of pre-recorded sounds, and their reactions are recorded.
“We do say this may be triggering, but it’s a safe space. They are in a sound booth. There is no one else there actually eating or anything around them, and they can always stop at any time,” Husain said.
The researchers’ specialties are a direct match for the subject matter. Husain’s research concerns how the brain processes sound; Berenbaum studies adult psychopathology, with a focus on emotional processes and disturbances.
With psychologists and audiologists in three different countries using the same instruments and criteria, the team is excited to gather strong, comparable data, Berenbaum said. Their research may help narrow the “gray area” that exists around the condition.
“There’s no clear definition about where to draw the boundaries, where something changes from misophonia to not misophonia,” Berenbaum said. “Is misophonia something you have or you don’t, or are there degrees to it?”
A growing collaboration
Berenbaum and Husain have teamed up on misophonia research before. They surveyed and assessed for misophonia occurrence in spring of 2021 among a collegiate population, polling more than 12,000 University of Illinois undergraduate and graduate students for symptoms of various auditory disorders.
Their study, which ended in October 2023, found 20 percent of roughly 1,100 respondents showed strong evidence of misophonia-like traits, and many had comorbidities with other mental health conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Nearly 100 of the survey respondents also completed in-person audiological, psychological and MRI assessments. Manuscripts on these aspects of the study are being prepared.
Ever since she earned her doctorate in Cognitive and Neural Systems from Boston University in 1999, Husain has studied sounds for a living. Since 2008, her research has delved into hearing disorders such as tinnitus, a “ringing” in the ear often associated with hearing loss.
Her path to studying misophonia started with a separate sound-sensitivity condition: hyperacusis, or a reduced tolerance to everyday sounds. In her recent research with Berenbaum, they found a high degree of overlap for those experiencing both tinnitus and hyperacusis with misophonia.
Misophonia seems similar on the surface, but it’s a distinct condition. The term describes an intense reaction to specific, usually human-generated sounds, which may pair with resentment toward the source of the noise, Husain said.
In this international study, they’re planning to analyze whether the comorbid conditions are the same or different across the three countries.
“It’s common in the United States, at least for those with misophonia to have a history of anxiety and depression. In these different cultures, it’s less studied, and not in a systematic way,” Berenbaum said.
Husain learned more about the condition from a diverse set of researchers at a workshop funded by the REAM Foundation, which sponsors the grant-making Misophonia Research Fund. In the company of neuroscientists and psychologists, Husain realized there was another angle to analyze this condition.
“One of the things with misophonia is the fact that it’s been primarily studied and also treated by psychiatrists and psychologists. It has rarely been within the audiology hearing perspective, and I was like, ‘Wait, this is a sound.’ The people who are saying they’re worrying about misophonia are saying ‘I don’t like these sounds,’” Husain said.
The psychological impact of misophonia is significant, Husain said, and important to treat—sometimes the sounds only trigger discomfort when they come from certain people, even loved ones like a child or a parent, she said.
“I was very, very interested in the hearing aspect and what is it about this sound—what will happen if someone else, say a stranger, produces the sound?” Husain said.
For the current international study, researchers have successfully recruited around half of their Illinois sample, though they’re looking for participants within a 3-hour radius of Champaign to fill out their target of 100. The Seoul team has recruited around 20 people; while the Sâo Paulo operation is just getting started, Berenbaum said.
In addition, the team is recruiting for a second study in the same realm, to examine whether misophonia changes across the lifespan.
“What we’ll gain will benefit international research on misophonia and allow for greater and faster progress in understanding and treating it,” Berenbaum said.
(Are you interested in participating in this research, or do you know someone who might? Visit this site for more information.)
Editor’s note:
To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
