United States: People who experience misophonia show equivalents of physical discomfort from hearing the same noises that evoke displeasure in the general population, such as snoring or noisy breathing and chewing sounds, say the experts.
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A recent study survey finds misophonia affects more people than expected, while European researchers discovered genetic links exist between misophonia symptoms, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Psychiatrist Dirk Smit from the University of Amsterdam and his team examined genetic information at the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and 23andMe, as well as UK Biobank sites, to establish misophonia self-identifiers carry genes linked to psychiatric disorders and tinnitus.
Those who experience persistent ear sounds, known as tinnitus, show a higher tendency to display psychiatric signs of anxiety and depression.
What more are the experts stating?
According to Smit, “There was also an overlap with PTSD genetics,” sciencealert.com reported.
Additionally, “This means that genes that give sensitivity to PTSD also increase the likelihood for misophonia, and that could point to a shared neurobiological system that affects both. And that could suggest that treatment techniques used for PTSD could also be used for misophonia,” he added.
People who experience misophonia do not necessarily face similar mechanisms with other disorders, although sharing overlapping genetic risks exists.
People who suffer from misophonia show higher tendencies to keep their distress inside themselves.
The 2023 study by Smit and team found conclusive evidence of an association between personality traits and misophonia symptoms such as anxiety, worry, loneliness, and neuroticism behavior.
The intensity of reactions varies between annoyance and anger and disruptive distress that hinders usual activities.
“It has been argued… that misophonia is based on the feelings of guilt about the evoked irritation and anger rather than behavioral expressions of anger itself that causes the distress,” stated Smit and the team.
Research indicates that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend not to develop misophonia, sciencealert.com reported.
Surprisingly, those with ASD demonstrate reduced sound sensitivity despite their well-known sound intolerance.
“Our results suggest that misophonia and ASD are relatively independent disorders with regard to genomic variation,” as the researchers stated in their paper.
“It raises the possibility that other forms of misophonia exist, one that is mostly driven by the conditioning of anger or other negative emotionality to specific trigger sounds moderated by personality traits,” they added.