title: A window into the brain mechanisms associated with noise sensitivity.
abstract: Noise sensitive individuals are more likely to experience negative emotions from unwanted sounds and they show greater susceptibility to adverse effects of noise on health. Noise sensitivity does not originate from dysfunctions of the peripheral auditory system, and it is thus far unknown whether and how it relates to abnormalities of auditory processing in the central nervous system. We conducted a combined electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography (M/EEG) study to measure neural sound feature processing in the central auditory system in relation to the individual noise sensitivity. Our results show that high noise sensitivity is associated with altered sound feature encoding and attenuated discrimination of sound noisiness in the auditory cortex. This finding makes a step towards objective measures of noise sensitivity instead of self-evaluation questionnaires and the development of strategies to prevent negative effects of noise on the susceptible population.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, FI-00014, Finland.|BioMag Laboratory, HUS Medical Imaging Center, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, FI-00029, Finland.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kliuchko
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, FI-00014, Finland.
authors.forename: Marja
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heinonen-Guzejev
authors.affiliation: Center for Music in the Brain (MIB), Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, DK-8000, Denmark.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vuust
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, FI-00014, Finland.|Cicero Learning, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, FI-00014, Finland.
authors.forename: Mari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tervaniemi
authors.affiliation: Center for Music in the Brain (MIB), Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, DK-8000, Denmark.
authors.forename: Elvira
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brattico
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult