Sukhbinder Kumar

We believe that thinking of misophonia this way will give us a better understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms and enable development of novel treatments. Many thanks to Hirohito Kondo, Brian Moore and Giulia Poerio for organising this theme and inviting us to submit.

We consider misophonia within a social perception and cognition framework, one which accounts for the context in which sounds are perceived and the emotional reaction that is triggered. We highlight a need to go beyond thinking of misophonia as a disorder of auditory processing.

Honoured to be a part of an excellent theme issue published by @RSocPublishing. @skumar_ncl and I wrote a paper placing misophonia within a social cognition framework: doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2…; there's an excellent summary of the entire series here: doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2…

Great write-up and commentary @NeurologyToday: bit.ly/3MLO7vX on our latest publication @JCI_insight - we are one step closer to identifying epilepsy patients at high risk for #SUDEP and a preventative treatment for SUDEP @UIowaNeuro @uiowa @UIchildrens @CureEpilepsy

A Social Cognition Perspective on Misophonia osf.io/preprints/psya… In this pre-print, we outline limitations of the prevailing auditory framework and argue for a social cognition framework to understand misophonia. Thanks to co-authors @JoelIBerger and Phillip Gander.

We found that in #epilepsy patients, when seizures spread to a focal subregion of the human #amygdala, apnea is evoked & can persist for minutes after the seizures ends! Patients are unaware! This may lead to sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (#SUDEP). insight.jci.org/articles/view/…

The data in this work is consistent with the 'hyper-mirroring' hypothesis of misophonia put forward in our previous fMRI work (Kumar et al, 2021). Thanks to all the co-authors: @parisarizonaash , Ester Benzaquén, Phillip Gander and @JoelIBerger

Our new work on 'Mimicry in Misophonia' : psyarxiv.com/phztn/ We show that: 1. Mimicry is widely prevalent in misophonia. 2. Compared to other sounds, eating sounds are more likely to trigger mimicking. 3. The act of mimicking provides relief to people with misophonia.

A postdoc position is available at University of Iowa to take forward our work on misophonia. Someone with experience in fMRI data analysis would best fit the job. For more details, please see: jobs.uiowa.edu/postdoc/view/3… Feel free to get in touch if you have any further query.

@Imperceptions Sure. Please do send me a copy. Thank you for the free offer!

@Imperceptions Many Congratulations Shaylynn on the book release! I am sure lot of people will identify with your experience of misophonia in the book. Also thank you so much for your words of encouragement about our research work. These keep us going.

@Olanoo Thank you very much Olana. It all started with you in the team! I am glad you liked the work.

This is so interesting! Thank you @skumar_ncl and your team for your continued research into the underlying mechanisms of #Misophonia! Congrats on this paper! Visual triggers and mimicking as coping strategy have both been common aspects of my own experiences.

@NickSimpsonPod @MercedeE82 Dear Nick, Thank you for sharing your experience and providing a detailed feedback on our work. Much appreciated.

@MercedeE82 @skumar_ncl This is the bit I found very exciting and helpful. "effective therapies should target the brain representation of movement". I would also be interested in the brain representation of texture and touch as experienced from a distance e.g. when we hear the sound of saliva.

Our paper is now out! The motor basis for #misophonia #jneurosci jneurosci.org/content/early/…

Simplified explanation of the findings in our recent work on misophonia jneurosci.org/content/early/… @MercedeE82 @AuditoryGroup @BrainLad @UniofNewcastle @NeuroNCL @NCL_medresearch @MilkenInstitute

In summary, our data shows that misophonia is not a disorder of sound processing, per se, but is a result manifestation of activity in motor (mirror) system involved in producing the sounds.

Interestingly, some people with misophonia can lessen their symptoms by mimicking the action generating the trigger sound, which might indicate restoring a sense of control.

We are excited to share our latest work on misophonia, which is out today in the Journal of Neuroscience. jneurosci.org/content/early/… Please follow this thread for a brief description.