supported by the fact that people with PTSD have impaired P50 gating and an inability to filter redundant auditory stimuli. Irregularities in the production of and response to neurotransmitters is one possible etiology for sensory overload in people with PTSD; specifically, people with PTSD may display hypersensitivity to stimuli due to chronic homeostatic imbalances in dopamine and norepinephrine. The hypersensitivity of people with PTSD to sensory stimuli is supported by an augmented P300 event-related potential response compared to healthy controls which indicates a semi-permanent heightened attention to deviant and salient stimuli. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) People with OCD display a cognitive inflexibility to changing environments. It seems that people with OCD are hypersensitive to stimuli that are indicative of negative situations, and this hypersensitivity may contribute to sensory overload. It is theorized that people with OCD have compulsions to carry out repetitive actions due to self-doubt and a desire to achieve perfection. A common trigger for compulsions in people with OCD is the perception of contamination; people with OCD commonly deal with the perception of contamination with repetitive hand washing. In a situation where a person with OCD is subjected to an environmental stimuli that elicits compulsion, such as getting dirt on their hands, they may feel overwhelmed by sensory stimuli and deal with this sensory overload through mitigating the stress with compulsions such as repetitive hand washing. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Schizophrenia (see also sensory gating) People with schizophrenia are prone to sensory overload since people with the condition cannot divert their attention from repetitive and unimportant sensory stimuli. The inability to focus on relevant stimuli and filter out unnecessary and excessive sensory stimuli displayed in schizophrenics is due to physiological sensory gating issues, and the paired click P50 test can be used to determine if an individual has abnormalities in sensory gating and is therefore prone to sensory overload. A proposed theory that explains sensory overload in schizophrenic patients is that abnormalities in alpha-7 and low affinity nicotinic acetylcholine receptors prevent normal transduction pathways between the cortex and hippocampus that facilitate sensory gating. Misophonia, a pathological 'hatred of sound' People with misophonia display hypersensitivity to certain pattern-based noises such as the sound of chewing, slurping, finger tapping, foot shuffling, throat clearing, pen clicking, and keyboard tapping; people with misophonia respond to triggering sounds with emotional distress and increased hormonal activity of the sympathetic system. When people with misophonia are