For as long as she can remember, Suzanne Belasik has been a prisoner to sound. Gum cracking, crunching and the clanking of silverware against plates are just a few of the unbearable noises that make her distracted, irritated and even enraged.

While some say she is "overly sensitive," Ms. Belasik, 24, of Ross, recognizes that she has a condition called misophonia, or selective sound sensitivity syndrome.

For people with a condition that some scientists call misophonia, mealtime can be torture. The sounds of other people eating — chewing, chomping, slurping, gurgling — can send them into an instantaneous, blood-boiling rage….Many people can be driven to distraction by certain small sounds that do not seem to bother others — gum chewing, footsteps, humming. But sufferers of misophonia, a newly recognized condition that remains little studied and poorly understood, take the problem to a higher level.

Since subjective tinnitus is perceived as a sound, the ear has often been assumed to be the location of the pathology. It is now evident that most forms of subjective tinnitus, hyperacusis (decreased tolerance of sound), phonophobia (fear of sound), and misophonia (dislike of certain sounds) are caused by changes in the function of the central auditory nervous system.