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These sounds directly activate the autonomic nervous system which is located in the brainstem and the limbic system, these parts of the brain control emotion. But what is the autonomic nervous system and the limbic system? According to, Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org › wiki › autonomic_nervous_system, the text states, “The autonomic nervous system is a control system that acts largely unconsciously and regulates bodily functions, such as the heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, and urination.” Which sums up the Autonomic Nervous System. Now what is the limbic system, simply put it is a complex system of nerves and networks in the brain, involving several areas near the edge of the cortex concerned with instinct and mood. It controls the basic emotions.
More importantly, what do these systems within the brain have to do with misophonia? For the limbic system that thing is synesthesia, more importantly sound and emotion synesthesia. Synesthesia is the production of a sense impression, relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. Emotional synesthesia however, controls negative and aggressive emotional reactions to sound, commonly described as a hatred towards sound which is much like misophonia. The limbic system plays a part in causing misophonia and synesthesia reactions because of an involuntary physical and emotional reflex
caused by the sound. These sounds then directly activate the autonomic nervous system. The relationship that misophonia has with the autonomic nervous system is still being discovered just as with the limbic system.​ Much like in the limbic system, since both of the systems are so closely related, the autonomic nervous systems reactions are also from negative emotional reactivity. Negative emotional reactivity is simply how often and how much a person experiences negative emotions. Because so much is still being discovered about the link between this condition and the brain, the information about their connections are mainly in scans of the brain from people with Misophonia that show changes in the activity from these two systems within the brain.
In conclusion misophonia is still a relatively mysterious condition. The causes are not directly known and neither is a kind of cure, therapy is always recommended to help lessen the discomfort associated with the sounds. The disorder is extremely delicate and while as originally thought to come from trauma, that is not the cause of it. The condition instead causes a sort of trauma and generally develops when normal environmental sounds are associated with discomforting events. Even so, there is still much left to discover about the condition. The condition in itself is quite interesting as are what it affects around the brain or what the brain is affecting to cause it. It is rare but people around the
Be Well Community Newsletter: Spring 2020