Your (well, My) Brain on Misophonia

[Guest guest]

My continuing foray into neurofeedback has been yielding some interesting

results. After my qEEG, a practitioner ran the results through a program called

LORETA, which uses a quantitative method to figure out what part of my lower

brain has the anomalous brainwaves. the conclusion, in short, is that there's an

obvious anomaly centered in my limbic system, which is responsible for emotions

and, to an extent, for sensory processing.

I'm uploading a picture of my brain so that everyone can look at it (as soon as

I figure out how to upload files), but first, here is what the practitioner, Dr.

Corey Fineberg, wrote (his explanation is better than mine):

" Let me first say what a pleasure it has been working with you. This is very

exciting stuff! As promised, I am attaching the LORETA snapshots in 3D and 2D

of your brain's over-activity in the Limbic Lobe in the upper Beta range (23Hz

to be exact). What these scans suggest is that you have an excess of cortical

activity deep in the Limbic system which we know is responsible for regulating

functions related to emotion, memory, and certain sensory processes.

Hyper-activity in this region is almost certainly related to your

hyper-sensitivity to specific sounds and the associated emotional reactions that

accompany them. I am also attaching a pdf version of your QEEG page that

illustrates the same region of dysregulation on the surface EEG as opposed to

the deeper brain images as produced by LORETA. Both types of scans are

expressed in Zscores which means that the raw data has been compared to a

normative database for your age and sex. For example, when you see a red spot on

the brain, that means that you have too much activity in that region as compared

to other " normals " for your age and sex. Our goal is to reduce the amount of

statistical deviation from the norm in those regions indicated using

neurofeedback training that is repeated through a process of operant

conditioning. The idea is that once these deviations are able to be

successfully self-regulated, then the symptoms will subside. At that point we

can perform a follow-up Qeeg and LORETA analysis and visually see the reduction

in Zscores expressed as " less red " on the maps and lowered accompanying numeric

values. "

In summary, at least for my brain, WE KNOW EXACTLY WHERE THE ANOMALY IS. Guys,

this is exciting....

-Kate