B3714 - Hypersensitivities and Aversions across the 5-senses - 09/03/2021

B number: 
B3714
Principal applicant name: 
Julia Simner | University of Sussex (UK)
Co-applicants: 
Dr Louisa Rinaldi
Title of project: 
Hypersensitivities and Aversions across the 5-senses
Proposal summary: 

Most people have a comfortable tolerance for information received via their sense organs (i.e., sounds, tastes, smells etc.) while others have SENSORY SENSITIVITIES (i.e., over-reactivity, such as when sounds feel too loud) or SENSORY AVERSIONS (negative emotional responses, e.g., when sounds trigger anger, e.g., to the sound of chewing). Our prior proposal (approved and ongoing) investigates AUDITORY sensitivities (hyperacusis and misophonia; where sounds cause pain, or distress/anger respectively). However, sound-difficulties are just one branch of a broader profile which can affect multiple senses, and cause considerable negative impact in day to day life. For example, broad sensory sensitivities play a significant role in anxiety disorder (sometimes via neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism). With poor well-being and anxiety placing substantial financial burden on society (e.g., £12 billion invested annually by the NHS), our study aims to better understand sensory sensitivities and aversions with a questionnaire that identifies those ALSPAC participants who have such difficulties across multiple senses. The wealth of ALSPAC back-data will then allow us to “reach back” into their childhood, to explore their early development in terms of wellbeing, mental health, mood and feelings (DAWBA, Strengths and difficulties, mood and feelings, PANAS, Locus of control, anxiety) as well as their cognitive skills (eg., attention tasks), and schooling attainment (school key stage linked data). We predict that adults with sensory sensitivities/aversions were likely already expressing poorer mental well-being at a younger age, and may have heightened scores on tasks such as attention-to-detail and obsessive control, and potentially lower scores on school attendance and attainment.

Impact of research: 
The impact of our research is likely to be considerable, both in terms of developments in the field, and also on the lives of people who struggle with sensory difficulties. For the field, our work aims to make the first distinction between sensory SENSITIVITIES (caused by over-stimulation; i.e., sensory bombardment) and sensory AVERSIONS (caused by an affective or emotional dysregulation; e.g., anger-responses). And within this latter we aim to provide a grand theory of sensory aversions where these had been studied previously only in the auditory domain (as misophonia). In other words, we hope to show for the first time that misophonia may be a sub-category of a wider family of aversions we term misesthesia (hatred of sensations), and that these differ in quality and aetiology to sensory sensitivities.
Date proposal received: 
Tuesday, 2 February, 2021
Date proposal approved: 
Thursday, 4 February, 2021
Keywords: 
Mental health - Psychology, Psychiatry, Cognition, Behaviour - e.g. antisocial behaviour, risk behaviour, etc., Developmental disorders - autism, Eating disorders - anorexia, bulimia, Mental health, Sensory differences; sensory sensitivities ; sensory aversions, Statistical methods, Childhood - childcare, childhood adversity, Cognition - cognitive function, Development, Intelligence - memory, Mothers - maternal age, menopause, obstetrics, Parenting, Psychology - personality