Which parts of the brain are the Dragon, the Judge, the Fact Checker and the Mirror?
When a trigger sound hits, four very different things happen in your mind at once. This article introduces the four characters I use to tell them apart, then looks at what research has found about the brain regions linked to each one, and where that research stops.
The four voices
When a trigger sound hits, a lot happens in a split second. I describe it as four presenters sharing the decks of one radio station in your head. I call the station DJ FM, and the four presenters are:
- The Dragon is the fast, protective alarm.
- The Judge hands down quick verdicts: “rude, deliberate, guilty”.
- The Fact Checker separates what actually happened from the story about it.
- The Mirror notices calmly what is there and what matters to you.
They are characters in a book I wrote, The Misophonia Workbook, where they help people work out which voice is talking. They are a picture, not a brain scan. But people often ask me whether they match anything real in the brain. This article sets out what research says, and where it says nothing at all.
The Dragon: the anterior insula
The anterior insula helps you notice what is going on inside your body: your heartbeat, your muscle tension, that sudden “something is wrong” feeling. In a 2017 study from Newcastle University and UCL, people with misophonia showed much larger responses in this region when they heard trigger sounds than people without misophonia.1 Their heart rate and skin conductance also rose, and the activity in the insula was linked to those changes.
The insula works closely with the amygdala, which is often described as the brain’s alarm centre. They are two separate structures that work as a team. That is why the Dragon is best understood as the body’s fast response to a sound, not as “a broken amygdala”.
The Dragon is the part of the response that reaches your heart rate and muscles before you have had a single thought.
The Judge: the ventromedial and orbital prefrontal cortex
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex sits behind the forehead and helps attach value and meaning to what you experience: good, bad, fair, rude. The same 2017 study found that in misophonia the connection between the insula and this area was abnormal.1 That is consistent with the Judge’s job of attaching a verdict to a sound, although the study does not say that is what the region is doing here. Neighbouring areas of the orbital prefrontal cortex are generally linked with valuing and evaluating what happens to us.
The Fact Checker: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampus
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, at the upper front of the brain, helps you hold information in mind and weigh it up. The hippocampus helps you compare the present with what you have actually experienced before. Together they ask the Fact Checker’s questions: what did I actually hear, and what am I only guessing?
The 2017 study found altered connectivity between the insula and the hippocampus in people with misophonia.1 The link to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex comes from general neuroscience of reasoning and working memory, not from misophonia research.
The Mirror: the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate
These two areas along the midline of the brain are linked with self-reflection and with noticing your own state. That fits the Mirror, which reflects calmly what is actually there, without verdicts or alarms.
The 2017 study also found altered connectivity between the insula and a nearby midline region, the posteromedial cortex, which includes the posterior cingulate.1 Beyond that, the Mirror’s link to the medial prefrontal cortex rests on general research into self-reflection, not on studies of misophonia.
Where the picture stops
Please do not read this as a wiring diagram. Brain regions never work alone, and every one of the areas above does many jobs. The research on misophonia is still early, and the brain imaging studies so far have been small. DJ FM is a useful picture, not a scientific model.
It also does not mean any of these regions is “at fault”. A loud Dragon and Judge with a quiet Fact Checker and Mirror is simply what a protective nervous system does by default. The aim is not to silence anyone. It is to turn up the Fact Checker and the Mirror, so the decks are shared out more evenly.
The workbook
The workbook does not teach any of this anatomy. It helps you spot which presenter is on air, then run small experiments that are easy to reverse, to see what helps. It is a practical journal for adults and teens, available as a fillable PDF or a paperback.
Meet DJ FM in The Misophonia Workbook.
A practical journal for finding your triggers, testing small changes and deciding what is worth keeping. See what is inside and choose how to get it.
Further reading
References
- Kumar S, Tansley-Hancock O, Sedley W, Winston JS, Callaghan MF, Allen M, Cope TE, Gander PE, Bamiou DE, Griffiths TD. The Brain Basis for Misophonia. Current Biology, 2017; 27(4): 527–533.
