Current and Future Misophonia Projects
Role of Expectations and Beliefs in Driving Brain Activity in Misophonia
How do our expectations toward a stimuli affect our response? Is a mild stimuli perceived as more severe if the individual is expecting a severe stimuli? What is the AI's role in this expectation phase?
The ongoing project uses a multimodal method using structural and functional MRI (task & resting state) and behavioral responses to investigate if it is this expectation that drives the brain activity and distress in misophonia rather than the sound itself.
Contributions of Beliefs in Misophonia
What drives the AI activity since there is no sound input during the expectation phase? What mechanisms are responsible for this "belief" that a sound will be aversive?
In the absence of sound, some theories propose that beliefs are encoded at levels of the brain higher than the AI which drives the AI activity. Notably, previous research has shown functional connectivity of the AI to nodes of the default mode network (DMN: ventromedial prefrontal cortex, vmPFC, posterior cingulate cortex, PCC) in response to a trigger sound.
The future project will use a multimodal method consisting of structural and functional MRI (task & resting state) and behavioral responses to investigate the processing of the DMN and the it's nodes drive the activity of the AI.
Previous Misophona Projects
The Brain Basis for Misophonia
This project served an important role in the research on misophonia by allowing researchers to understand what happens in the brain and body of misophones while hearing a trigger sound. Specifically, Kumar et al. used fMRI, MRI, and physiological measurements to examine trigger-related-responses in the brain and body. Trigger sounds elicited greater activity in the anterior insular cortex (AIC), as well as heightened heart rate (HR) and galvanic skin response (GSR), which was mediated by AIC activity.
Link to paper: The Brain Basis for Misophonia - PubMed (nih.gov)