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Cognitive and neural processes in non-clinical auditory hallucinations

The University of Manchester

JOHN STIRLING, DPhil

the Manchester Metropolitan University

RICHARD HOPKINS, MB, ChB, MRCPsych, SHANE McKIE, PhD and SHÔN LEWIS, MD, FMedSci

The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Correspondence: Dr S. Lewis, Neuroscience and Psychiatry Unit, The University of Manchester, Stopford Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT. Email: shon.lewis{at}manchester.ac.uk

Declaration of interest None. Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.

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.