Altered intrinsic brain connectivity in misophonia, with and without hyperacusis

Misophonia and loudness hyperacusis are debilitating sound intolerance conditions marked by extreme emotional and physiological responses to everyday sounds. Although frequently co-occurring, their distinct neural correlates remain poorly delineated. In an exploratory data-driven analysis, we identified neural-connectivity based markers of misophonia among cortical and subcortical networks in the brain using resting-state fMRI data. We leveraged an optimized and cross-validated machine learning framework to sift through >85 thousand functional connections and to evaluate detectability of misophonia, in isolation and when comorbid with hyperacusis. Participants were rigorously categorized using structured interviews into misophonia-only (MI), misophonia with hyperacusis (MH), and control (CTR) groups. Classifier models trained on individual functional connectivity distinguished both MI and MH from CTR, with 63 % and 67 % test prediction accuracy respectively. Core misophonia-related alterations consistently emerged across both groups, particularly in salience, somatomotor, and frontoparietal control networks, implying disruptions in emotion regulation, motor inhibition, and attentional control, respectively. Specific to misophonia-only were connectivity abnormalities in the basal ganglia and subcortex, suggesting a neural dissociation between MI and MH conditions. In contrast, connectivity trends unique to MH revealed networks implicated in higher-order visual processing, likely reflecting hyperacusis-linked processes. These findings offer a refined neurobiological dissociation between misophonia and hyperacusis and underscore the importance of careful diagnostic separation in both research and clinical contexts. By isolating misophonia-relevant brain networks, our results provide actionable insight into the development of precise neuroscience-informed interventions. In particular, they support psychology-based therapy to target dysfunctional connectivity in salience and control circuits for treating misophonia.