By looking at the brain scans, the researchers saw that the wiring between different regions of the brain is different in people who react that strongly. One region of our brain is called the anterior insular cortex and it influences what we pay attention to. For people with misophonia, that region was more active when they listened to trigger sounds. Not only that, but their AIC connected a lot more to other regions, which also contributed to the extreme response.
Misophonia is pretty rare, but knowing more about how the brain creates this emotional response could help us develop better treatments for it — and maybe also help the rest of us who don’t have the condition but still want to shudder when we hear loud breathing.
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