Abstract
BACKGROUND: The nosological status of auditory hallucinations in non-clinical samples is unclear.
AIMS: To investigate the functional neural basis of non-clinical hallucinations.
METHOD: After selection from 1206 people, 68 participants of high, medium and low hallucination proneness completed a task designed to elicit verbal hallucinatory phenomena under conditions of stimulus degradation. Eight subjects who reported hearing a voice when none was present repeated the task during functional imaging.
RESULTS: During the signal detection task, the high hallucination-prone participants reported a voice to be present when it was not (false alarms) significantly more often than the average or low participants (P<0.03, d.f.=2). On functional magnetic resonance imaging, patterns of activation during these false alarms showed activation in the superior and middle temporal cortex (P<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: Auditory hallucinatory experiences reported in non-clinical samples appear to be mediated by similar patterns of cerebral activation as found during hallucinations in schizophrenia.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 76-81 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | The British journal of psychiatry. Supplement |
| Volume | 51 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2007 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Acoustic Stimulation/methods
- Adolescent
- Adult
- Auditory Perceptual Disorders/physiopathology
- Brain Mapping/methods
- Female
- Hallucinations/physiopathology
- Humans
- Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods
- Male
- Marijuana Smoking/psychology
- Reaction Time
- Schizophrenic Psychology
- Signal Detection, Psychological
- Temporal Lobe/physiopathology