February 8, 2017.
Some of us can’t stand hearing our neighbors at the table chewing. A discomfort which would be due to an abnormality of the brain.
A clearly identified condition called misophonia
According to a study conducted by a team of researchers from Newcastle University in Great Britain and published in the journal Current Biology, if you can’t stand the noise some people make when they eat, you may have a brain defect. This is a clearly identified pathology called misophonia (hatred of sound).
To reach this conclusion, the researchers asked around 40 people to listen to different neutral sounds like the sound of rain or unpleasant sounds like a baby crying, the sound of heavy breathing or chewing. They were able to observe that people who suffered from misophonia reacted in the same way as other participants to listening to these sounds, except when it came to the sound of breathing and chewing.
Disproportionate emotional reactions
When they hear these special sounds, people with misophonia experience a rapid heartbeat and start to sweat. But how to explain this phenomenon? According to the researchers, these disproportionate emotional reactions are due to runaway brain activity in the frontal lobe and anterior insular cortex, regions involved in emotions.
” For many people, this study is good news: for the first time, we show a difference in the structure of the brain in some patients ”, Rejoiced Dr. Sukhbinder Kumar, who participated in the work. An observation that could lead to the development of treatments capable of alleviating this cerebral anomaly. For now, patients with misophonia have no choice but to take it upon themselves when they are at the table.
Read also: 11 strange sounds of the body and their explanation
Marine Rondot
