Figure 3.

Functional Connectivity and Structural Data Analysis

(A) Left AIC was taken as a seed region and its functional connectivity to all voxels of the brain was analyzed. The figure illustrates those brain areas that show greater connectivity for trigger sounds (compared to neutral sounds) in misophonic subjects (compared to controls). The four areas that survive the threshold are (1) PMC (posterior cingulate cortex [PCC]/precuneus), (2) vmPFC, (3) hippocampus, and (4) amygdala. The bar chart for each region shows confirmatory plots of connectivity for trigger and unpleasant sounds with respect to neutral sounds. Displayed connectivity strengths are cluster thresholded at p < 0.05 with cluster-forming threshold at p < 0.001 (see Figure S3 for functional connectivity of right AIC and overlap of the connectivity network with the default mode network).

(B) Brain structural changes in misophonia. Misophonic subjects show higher MT saturation, which reflects higher myelination, compared to controls in vmPFC. When corrected for multiple comparisons (p < 0.05 FWE corrected for brain areas that show higher functional connectivity in misophonics to trigger sounds; i.e., the functional network shown in (A) along with the seed region AIC), 15 voxels of vmPFC with maxima at (−3, 44, −2) survive the correction. For display purposes in the figure, a threshold of p < 0.001 uncorrected is used. p.u., percent units.

Data in bar charts show mean (± SEM).