I CAME across a new word this week – misophonia. And it perfectly describes a good friend of mine.

It is a condition whereby a person becomes agitated, even enraged, by simple noises like someone eating an apple, crunching a bag of crisps or even scraping a dinner plate.

Now, to most people this may sound irrational. But for some people it is a real condition, which scientists in the UK are now studying.

I guess a lot of people reading this column (and I count myself in this) become annoyed when you’re in the cinema and someone starts loudly eating popcorn or slurping loudly from their drinks can.

But for those with misophonia, irritation/mild annoyance can become blind anger.

My friend has actually moved seats in a train carriage more than four times in a two-hour journey, for fear of completely losing his temper with someone eating loudly in the seat opposite. And he’s walked out of cinemas!

You can laugh at the notion (and I have in the past), but now I have come to understand it is real.

Scientists at multiple centres across the UK have actually been scanning the brains of people with the condition.

They have found that some people’s brains are actually “hard-wired” to produce an “excessive” emotional response to everyday noises.

And here is where it gets technical... they have discovered that in these people the part of the brain that joins our senses with our emotions – the anterior insular cortex – was overly active.

They are hoping now that understanding differences in the misophonic brain will lead to new treatments.

Shockingly (excuse the pun) they are even talking about targeted electricity being passed through the skull to adjust brain function. Really?

Might noise reducing headphones be an easier solution?

My friend doubtless would have wished he’d taken them when he went to see a film called A Quiet Place, a terror movie where monsters attack you if you make a sound.

Now, fairly obviously, most of the film is silent and every crisp crunching noise is accentuated. I was tempted to ask him if that was a good choice of film – but I thought better of it!

If you wish to contact Clinton, you can email him at clinton.rogers@countygazette.co.uk