Hallucinations and REM sleep behaviour disorder in Parkinson's disease: dream imagery intrusions and other hypotheses.

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Manni, Raffaele; Terzaghi, Michele; Ratti, Pietro-Luca; Repetto, Alessandra; Zangaglia, Roberta; Pacchetti, Claudio

2011-12-01

REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is a REM sleep-related parasomnia which may be considered a "dissociated state of wakefulness and sleep", given that conflicting elements of REM sleep (dreaming) and of wakefulness (sustained muscle tone and movements) coexist during the episodes, leading to motor and behavioural manifestations reminiscent of an enacted dream. RBD has been reported in association with α-synucleinopathies: around a third of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have full-blown RBD. Recent data indicate that PD patients with RBD are more prone to hallucinations than PD patients without this parasomnia. However it is still not clear why RBD in PD is associated with an increased prevalence of VHs. Data exist which suggest that visual hallucinations in PD may be the result of untimely intrusions of REM visual imagery into wakefulness. RBD, which is characterised by a REM sleep dissociation pattern, might be a condition that particularly favours such intrusions. However, other hypotheses may be advanced. In fact, deficits in attentional, executive, visuoperceptual and visuospatial abilities have been documented in RBD and found to occur far more frequently in PD with RBD than in PD without RBD. Neuropsychological deficits involving visual perception and attentional processes are thought to play an important role in the pathophysiology of VHs. On this basis, RBD in PD could be viewed as a contributory risk factor for VHs. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reality of auditory verbal hallucinations.

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Raij, Tuukka T; Valkonen-Korhonen, Minna; Holi, Matti; Therman, Sebastian; Lehtonen, Johannes; Hari, Riitta

2009-11-01

Distortion of the sense of reality, actualized in delusions and hallucinations, is the key feature of psychosis but the underlying neuronal correlates remain largely unknown. We studied 11 highly functioning subjects with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder while they rated the reality of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The subjective reality of AVH correlated strongly and specifically with the hallucination-related activation strength of the inferior frontal gyri (IFG), including the Broca's language region. Furthermore, how real the hallucination that subjects experienced was depended on the hallucination-related coupling between the IFG, the ventral striatum, the auditory cortex, the right posterior temporal lobe, and the cingulate cortex. Our findings suggest that the subjective reality of AVH is related to motor mechanisms of speech comprehension, with contributions from sensory and salience-detection-related brain regions as well as circuitries related to self-monitoring and the experience of agency.

Internal versus External Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenia: Symptom and Course Correlates

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Docherty, Nancy M.; Dinzeo, Thomas J.; McCleery, Amanda; Bell, Emily K.; Shakeel, Mohammed K.; Moe, Aubrey

2015-01-01

Introduction The auditory hallucinations associated with schizophrenia are phenomenologically diverse. “External” hallucinations classically have been considered to reflect more severe psychopathology than “internal” hallucinations, but empirical support has been equivocal. Methods We examined associations of “internal” v. “external” hallucinations with (a) other characteristics of the hallucinations, (b) severity of other symptoms, and (c) course of illness variables, in a sample of 97 stable outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who experienced auditory hallucinations. Results Patients with internal hallucinations did not differ from those with external hallucinations on severity of other symptoms. However, they reported their hallucinations to be more emotionally negative, distressing, and long-lasting, less controllable, and less likely to remit over time. They also were more likely to experience voices commenting, conversing, or commanding. However, they also were more likely to have insight into the self-generated nature of their voices. Patients with internal hallucinations were not older, but had a later age of illness onset. Conclusions Differences in characteristics of auditory hallucinations are associated with differences in other characteristics of the disorder, and hence may be relevant to identifying subgroups of patients that are more homogeneous with respect to their underlying disease processes. PMID:25530157

Thought-action fusion and thought suppression in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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Rassin, E; Diepstraten, P; Merckelbach, H; Muris, P

2001-07-01

To examine the significance of thought-action fusion (TAF) and thought suppression tendencies, the present study obtained pre- and post-treatment questionnaire data on these constructs in a sample of OCD patients (n=24) and non-OCD anxiety patients (n=20). Results indicate that TAF and suppression are correlated with severity of psychopathology. Yet, the associations between TAF and psychopathology are not typical for OCD, but do also occur in other anxiety disorders (e.g., panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and social phobia). As well, mean scores on the TAF and thought suppression measures dropped significantly from pre- to post-treatment, indicating that TAF and thought suppression are susceptible to change during psychotherapy.

Minds on replay: musical hallucinations and their relationship to neurological disease.

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Golden, Erin C; Josephs, Keith A

2015-12-01

The phenomenon of musical hallucinations, in which individuals perceive music in the absence of an external auditory stimulus, has been described sparingly in the literature through small case reports and series. Musical hallucinations have been linked to multiple associated conditions, including psychiatric and neurologic disease, brain lesions, drug effect, and hearing impairment. This study aimed to review the demographics of subjects with musical hallucinations and to determine the prevalence of neurological disorders, particularly neurodegenerative disease. Through the Mayo medical record, 393 subjects with musical hallucinations were identified and divided into five categories based on comorbid conditions that have been associated with musical hallucinations: neurological, psychiatric, structural, drug effect and not otherwise classifiable. Variables, including hearing impairment and the presence of visual and other auditory hallucinations, were evaluated independently in all five groups. The mean age at onset of the hallucinations was 56 years, ranging from 18 to 98 years, and 65.4% of the subjects were female. Neurological disease and focal brain lesions were found in 25% and 9% of the total subjects, respectively. Sixty-five subjects were identified with a neurodegenerative disorder, with the Lewy body disorders being the most common. Visual hallucinations were more common in the group with neurological disease compared to the psychiatric, structural, and not otherwise classifiable groups (P < 0.001), whereas auditory hallucinations were more common in the psychiatric group compared to all other groups (P < 0.001). Structural lesions associated with musical hallucinations involved both hemispheres with a preference towards the left, and all but two included the temporal lobe. Hearing impairment was common, particularly in the not otherwise classifiable category where 67.2% had documented hearing impairment, more than in any other group (P < 0.001). Those

The self or the voice? Relative contributions of self-esteem and voice appraisal in persistent auditory hallucinations.

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Fannon, Dominic; Hayward, Peter; Thompson, Neil; Green, Nicola; Surguladze, Simon; Wykes, Til

2009-07-01

Persistent auditory hallucinations are common, disabling and difficult to treat. Cognitive behavioural therapy is recommended in their treatment though there is limited empirical evidence of the role of cognitive factors in the formation and persistence of voices. Low self-esteem is thought to play a causal and maintaining role in a range of clinical disorders, particularly depression, which is prevalent and disabling in schizophrenia. It was hypothesized that low self-esteem is prominent in, and contributes to, depression in voice hearers. Beliefs about persistent auditory hallucinations were investigated in 82 patients using the Beliefs About Voices Questionnaire--revised in a cross-sectional design. Self-esteem and depression were assessed using standardized measures. Depression and low self-esteem were prominent as were beliefs about the omnipotence and malevolence of auditory hallucinations. Beliefs about the uncontrollability and dominance of auditory hallucinations and low self-esteem were significantly correlated with depression. Low self-esteem did not mediate the effect of beliefs about auditory hallucinations--both acted independently to contribute to depression in this sample of patients with schizophrenia and persistent auditory hallucinations. Low self-esteem is of fundamental importance to the understanding of affective disturbance in voice hearers. Therapeutic interventions need to address both the appraisal of self and hallucinations in schizophrenia. Measures which ameliorate low self-esteem can be expected to improve depressed mood in this patient group. Further elucidation of the mechanisms involved can strengthen existing models of positive psychotic symptoms and provide targets for more effective treatments.

Visual Hallucinations in First-Episode Psychosis: Association with Childhood Trauma.

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Solesvik, Martine; Joa, Inge; Larsen, Tor Ketil; Langeveld, Johannes; Johannessen, Jan Olav; Bjørnestad, Jone; Anda, Liss Gøril; Gisselgård, Jens; Hegelstad, Wenche Ten Velden; Brønnick, Kolbjørn

2016-01-01

Hallucinations are a core diagnostic criterion for psychotic disorders and have been investigated with regard to its association with childhood trauma in first-episode psychosis samples. Research has largely focused on auditory hallucinations, while specific investigations of visual hallucinations in first-episode psychosis remain scarce. The aims of this study were to describe the prevalence of visual hallucinations, and to explore the association between visual hallucination and childhood trauma in a first-episode psychosis sample. Subjects were included from TIPS-2, a first episode psychosis study in south Rogaland, Norway. Based on the medical journal descriptions of the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS), a separate score for visual and auditory hallucinations was created (N = 204). Patients were grouped according to hallucination severity (none, mild, and psychotic hallucinations) and multinomial logistic regression was performed to identify factors associated with visual hallucination group. Visual hallucinations of a psychotic nature were reported by 26.5% of patients. The experience of childhood interpersonal trauma increased the likelihood of having psychotic visual hallucinations. Visual hallucinations are common in first-episode psychosis, and are related to childhood interpersonal trauma.

Thought Disorder in Preschool Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

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Hutchison, Amanda K; Kelsay, Kimberly; Talmi, Ayelet; Noonan, Kate; Ross, Randal G

2016-08-01

Preschool identification of and intervention for psychiatric symptoms has the potential for lifelong benefits. However, preschool identification of thought disorder, a symptom associated with long term risk for social and cognitive dysfunction, has received little attention with previous work limited to examining preschoolers with severe emotional and behavioral dysregulation. Using story-stem methodology, 12 children with ADHD and 12 children without ADHD, ages 4.0-6.0 years were evaluated for thought disorder. Thought disorder was reliably assessed (Cronbach's alpha = .958). Children with ADHD were significantly more likely than children without ADHD to exhibit thought disorder (75 vs 25 %; Fischer's Exact Test = .0391). Thought disorder can be reliably assessed in preschool children and is present in preschool children with psychiatric illness including preschool children with ADHD. Thought disorder may be identifiable in preschool years across a broad range of psychiatric illnesses and thus may be an appropriate target of intervention.

Self-recognition Deficits in Schizophrenia Patients With Auditory Hallucinations : A Meta-analysis of the Literature

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Waters, Flavie; Woodward, Todd; Allen, Paul; Aleman, Andre; Sommers, Iris

Theories about auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia suggest that these experiences occur because patients fail to recognize thoughts and mental events as self-generated. Different theoretical models have been proposed about the cognitive mechanisms underlying auditory hallucinations. Regardless

Brazilian National Anthem presenting as musical hallucination: A case report with 9-year follow-up

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José Eduardo Martinelli

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Musical hallucination is a type of complex auditory hallucination. Possible etiologies are deafness, psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, major depression, use of medication and stress, besides neurologic diseases including epilepsy, stroke and cancer. Uncommon etiologies encompass infectious diseases, metabolic disorders, and sensory deprivation. Although musical hallucinations have a major impact on patients' lives, they have been undervalued and understudied in the literature. We report a case of a 79-year-old woman with musical hallucination (hearing a sung National anthem without cognitive impairment or hearing loss. The patient had preserved insight of her complaint and responded well to neuroleptics.

[Negative hallucination, self-onsciousness and ageing].

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Hazif-Thomas, C; Stephan, F; Walter, M; Thomas, P

2015-04-01

Negative hallucinations are characterized by a defect in perception of an object or a person, or a denial of the existence of their perception. Negative hallucinations create blank spaces, due to both an impossible representation and an incapability of investment in reality. They have a close relationship with Cotard's syndrome, delusional theme of organ denial observed in melancholic syndromes in the elderly. Phenomenological approach. The phenomenology of negative hallucinations provides quite an amount of information on the origin of the psychotic symptoms when one is rather old. The connections between hallucinations, mood disorders and negative symptoms are often difficult to live with for the nearest and dearest. Negative hallucinations require a strict approach to identify their expression that is crucial because a wide heterogeneity exists within the pathological pictures, as in Cotard's syndrome. Although the negative hallucination has an anti traumatic function in elderly people fighting against mental pain, it still represents a deficiency in symbolization. The prevalence of this symptom is without doubt underestimated, although its presence often underlines thymic suffering that is more striking. These hallucinatory symptoms have an important impact on the patients' daily life, and they appear to be prisoners of a suffering, which cannot be revealed. We propose in this article to review the clinical symptoms of negative hallucinations in the elderly and the way to manage them. The medicinal approaches are not always effective. A greater place must be given to what is in connection with the body, aiming at a strong impact and thus to offer non-pharmacological approaches, such as somatic ones, which can be either invasive (electroconvulsive therapy) or not (transcranial magnetic stimulation). Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.

Thought and language disorders in very early onset schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder

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Telma Pantano

Full Text Available Abstract Background Thought and language disorders are main features of adults with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders however studies on such abnormalities are scant in young patients with very early onset psychosis (VEOS. The aim of the present study is to assess the relationship between language and thought disorders in patients with very early onset schizophrenia (SCZ, schizoaffective disorders (SCA and bipolar disorders (BD. Method Forty-one patients (18 SCZ, 16 BD, and 7 SCA with mean age less than 15 years old were assessed through a series of neurocognitive and psycholinguistic tests, including the Thought, Language and Communication Scale (TLC. Results SCZ group performed worse in all tests as well as the TLC, followed by SCA and BD groups respectively. Thought disorders were related to deficits in executive functioning and semantic processing, and the metaphors’ test was the best predictor of TLC functioning. Discussion TD in SCZ, SCA and BD are one of the most important features in patients with VEOS and that the evaluation of metaphor comprehension can be an important instrument in the early detection of this disorder.

Responsibility, thought-action fusion, and thought suppression in Turkish patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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Yorulmaz, O; Karanci, A N; Bastug, B; Kisa, C; Goka, E

2008-03-01

Although an inflated sense of responsibility, thought-action fusion, and thought suppression are influential factors in cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), their impact on OCD has generally been demonstrated in samples from Western countries. The aim of the present study is to evaluate these cognitive factors in Turkish patients with OCD, other anxiety disorders, and community controls. Group comparisons showed that responsibility based on self-dangerousness and thought suppression significantly distinguished OCD patients from patients with other anxiety disorders and controls. Moreover, correlation and discriminant function analyses indicated that thought-action fusion in morality and likelihood was also associated with OCD symptoms. The present findings provide support for the international validity and specificity of cognitive factors and model for OCD.

The proximity between hallucination and delusion dimensions: An observational, analytic, cross-sectional, multicentre study

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Diogo Telles-correia

2016-11-01

Full Text Available 5.In the current psychiatric classifications, hallucinations (mainly auditory hallucinations are one of the fundamental criteria for establishing a schizophrenia diagnosis or any of the related psychotic disorder’s diagnoses.6.Throughout the history of Psychiatry the conceptual proximity between delusions and hallucinations in the psychiatric patient was maintained until the end of the XIX century,with several supporters during the XX century. Their frontier was not yet definitely defined in terms of Descriptive Psychopathology, and much less so in terms of biochemical and anatomical models.7.In this article we aimed to analyse the dimensions of both hallucinations and delusions in a sample of patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. We also intend to find the determinants of the main dimensions of hallucinations.8.One hundred patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder from both the outpatient and inpatient units of the Psychiatry Department of Hospital of Santa Maria and the Centro Hospitalar Psiquiátrico de Lisboa were assessed by means of the Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales (PSYRATS. 9.In this study we found an empirical based model, where the main dimensions of hallucinations are determined by the central dimensions of delusions. 10.Keywords: Psyrats, Hallucinations, Psychopathology, Psychosis, delusions

The neuropsychology of hallucinations

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Pavlović D.M.

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Hallucinations are a psychopathological phenomenon with neuropsychological, neuroanatomical and pathophysiological correlates in specific brain areas. They can affect any of the senses, but auditory and visual hallucinations predominate. Verbal hallucinations reveal no gross organic lesions while visual hallucinations are connected to defined brain lesions. Functional neuroimaging shows impairments in modality specific sensory systems with the hyperactivity of the surrounding cerebral cortex. Disinhibition and expansion of the inner speech was noted with impaired internal monitoring in auditory verbal hallucinations. The subcortical areas and modal-specific associative cortex and cingulate cortex are essential for the occurrence of hallucinations.

Source memory errors in schizophrenia, hallucinations and negative symptoms: a synthesis of research findings.

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Brébion, G; Ohlsen, R I; Bressan, R A; David, A S

2012-12-01

Previous research has shown associations between source memory errors and hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. We bring together here findings from a broad memory investigation to specify better the type of source memory failure that is associated with auditory and visual hallucinations. Forty-one patients with schizophrenia and 43 healthy participants underwent a memory task involving recall and recognition of lists of words, recognition of pictures, memory for temporal and spatial context of presentation of the stimuli, and remembering whether target items were presented as words or pictures. False recognition of words and pictures was associated with hallucination scores. The extra-list intrusions in free recall were associated with verbal hallucinations whereas the intra-list intrusions were associated with a global hallucination score. Errors in discriminating the temporal context of word presentation and the spatial context of picture presentation were associated with auditory hallucinations. The tendency to remember verbal labels of items as pictures of these items was associated with visual hallucinations. Several memory errors were also inversely associated with affective flattening and anhedonia. Verbal and visual hallucinations are associated with confusion between internal verbal thoughts or internal visual images and perception. In addition, auditory hallucinations are associated with failure to process or remember the context of presentation of the events. Certain negative symptoms have an opposite effect on memory errors.

The Neurophysiology of Auditory Hallucinations – A Historic and Contemporary Review

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Remko evan Lutterveld

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Electroencephalography (EEG and magnetoencephalography (MEG are two techniques that distinguish themselves from other neuroimaging methodologies through their ability to directly measure brain-related activity and their high temporal resolution. A large body of research has applied these techniques to study auditory hallucinations. Across a variety of approaches, the left superior temporal cortex is consistently reported to be involved in this symptom. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that a failure in corollary discharge, i.e. a neural signal originating in frontal speech areas that indicates to sensory areas that forthcoming thought is self-generated, may underlie the experience of auditory hallucinations

Treatment with venlafaxine in six cases of children with narcolepsy and with cataplexy and hypnagogic hallucinations.

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Møller, Lene Ruge; Østergaard, John R

2009-04-01

Narcolepsy with cataplexy is a chronic neuropsychiatric disorder associated with inappropriate control of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The main symptoms are excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, and disturbed nocturnal sleep. Cataplexy is marked by episodes of muscular weakness and may cause the patient to collapse to the ground. So far, pharmacotherapy of cataplexy and hypnagogic hallucinations has been predominantly based on tricyclic antidepressants. Recently, new drugs that block the reuptake of norepineprine and serotonin (e.g., venlafaxine) have been suggested as first-line treatment. These drugs have become our choice in treating children with cataplexy and nightmares as a symptom in narcolepsy. We describe clinical case reports of venlafaxine treatment in 6 children aged 7-12 years old when diagnosed with narcolepsy-cataplexy. In 2 cases with up to 50 daily cataplectic attacks, an initial effect of 37.5 mg of venlafaxine was initially observed. However, during the first year, the dose had to be increased to 112.5 mg daily to avoid cataplexy. A third patient with partial cataplexy was treated with 75 mg of venlafaxine daily. In 2 cases, hypnagogic hallucinations, described by the patients as nightmares, were the most troubling symptom and were successfully treated with only 37.5 mg of venlafaxine daily. Side effects included an increase of disturbed nocturnal sleep when venlafaxine was taken after 2:00 p.m. No major aggressive or suicidal thoughts and no raised blood pressure were recorded. Venlafaxine has proven to be an effective treatment of cataplexy and hypnagogic hallucinations in 6 children with narcolepsy. No severe side effects were observed.

Religious content of hallucinations in paranoid schizophrenia.

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Krzystanek, Marek; Krysta, Krzysztof; Klasik, Adam; Krupka-Matuszczyk, Irena

2012-09-01

Different environmental factors are thought to be responsible for 15-20% of schizophrenia pathogenesis. Religion has long been considered a major force in human life, regardless of economic, social or political affiliation. How the perception of religion has changed over time, especially in the context of mental illness, was the focal point of this long-term comparative study. A random selection of 100 case histories from the years 1932, 1952, 1972 and 1992 was selected. By reviewing the subject history and medical notes, information on the presence of religious hallucinations and/or delusions were collected and grouped. Religious topics were demonstrated in 46.8% of the test population. Whereas there was a clear diversity of religious-themed delusions, "God", "Christ", "Mary", "Satan/devil" and "hell" all figured prominently across all reviewed years. There is a progressive decrease in the number of religious topics in paranoid schizophrenia. The transfer of holiness from historical saints onto a subject was observed. Evil dominates over good in productive symptoms in paranoid schizophrenia. The phenomenon of apocalyptic subjects in paranoid hallucinations and delusions increased after the Second World War. Religious topics of hallucinations and delusions change over time and relate to objective historical events and reflect changes in religiosity in society.

Preclinical Polymodal Hallucinations for 13 Years before Dementia with Lewy Bodies

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Abbate, Carlo; Trimarchi, Pietro Davide; Inglese, Silvia; Viti, Niccolò; Cantatore, Alessandra; De Agostini, Lisa; Pirri, Federico; Marino, Lorenza; Bagarolo, Renzo

2014-01-01

Objective. We describe a case of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) that presented long-lasting preclinical complex polymodal hallucinations. Background. Few studies have deeply investigated the characteristics of hallucinations in DLB, especially in the preclinical phase. Moreover, the clinical phenotype of mild cognitive impairment-(MCI-) DLB is poorly understood. Methods. The patient was followed for 4 years and a selective phenomenological and cognitive study was performed at the predementia stage. Results. The phenomenological study showed the presence of hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations that allowed us to make a differential diagnosis between DLB and Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS). The neuropsychological evaluation showed a multiple domain without amnesia MCI subtype with prefrontal dysexecutive, visuoperceptual, and visuospatial impairments and simultanagnosia, which has not previously been reported in MCI-DLB. Conclusions. This study extends the prognostic value of hallucinations for DLB to the preclinical phases. It supports and refines the MCI-DLB concept and identifies simultanagnosia as a possible early cognitive marker. Finally, it confirms an association between hallucinations and visuoperceptual impairments at an intermediate stage of the disease course and strongly supports the hypothesis that hallucinations in the earliest stages of DLB may reflect a narcolepsy-like REM-sleep disorder. PMID:24868122

Preclinical Polymodal Hallucinations for 13 Years before Dementia with Lewy Bodies

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Carlo Abbate

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. We describe a case of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB that presented long-lasting preclinical complex polymodal hallucinations. Background. Few studies have deeply investigated the characteristics of hallucinations in DLB, especially in the preclinical phase. Moreover, the clinical phenotype of mild cognitive impairment-(MCI- DLB is poorly understood. Methods. The patient was followed for 4 years and a selective phenomenological and cognitive study was performed at the predementia stage. Results. The phenomenological study showed the presence of hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations that allowed us to make a differential diagnosis between DLB and Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS. The neuropsychological evaluation showed a multiple domain without amnesia MCI subtype with prefrontal dysexecutive, visuoperceptual, and visuospatial impairments and simultanagnosia, which has not previously been reported in MCI-DLB. Conclusions. This study extends the prognostic value of hallucinations for DLB to the preclinical phases. It supports and refines the MCI-DLB concept and identifies simultanagnosia as a possible early cognitive marker. Finally, it confirms an association between hallucinations and visuoperceptual impairments at an intermediate stage of the disease course and strongly supports the hypothesis that hallucinations in the earliest stages of DLB may reflect a narcolepsy-like REM-sleep disorder.

Do auditory verbal hallucinations have always aclinical significance?

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Jolanta Rabe-Jabłońska

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This article presents the prevalence of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs across the life span in various clinical and nonclinical groups in childhood, adolescence, and adult populations. Data on the occurrence of this phenomenon in the general population vary and usually are in the range of 5–28%. The prevalence of non-clinical AVHs is similar in childhood, ado‑ lescence and adulthood. It seems possible that the mechanisms which cause AVHs in non-clinical populations are different from those which are behind AVHs presentations in psychotic illness. In this paper the characteristics of differentiating clini‑ cal forms of hallucinations from the non-clinical ones are discussed. These are: the location of sensations, their content, inhibition control disorders, metacognitive disorders, emotional dysregulation, stress level, and their influence on functioning dis‑ orders. Considered as  etiological factors are abnormal activities of  some areas of  the brain and abnormal pruning. The triggering factors of both types of perception disorders are traumatic events and psychoactive substances use. Long-term studies have shown that the factors which lead to the transformation of non-clinical hallucinations into their clinical forms are: genetic predisposition, schizotypy, at-risk mental state, and stress. The future research needs to focus on the comparison of underlying factors and mechanisms that lead to the onset of AVHs in both patients and non-clinical populations.

Formal thought disorder in autism spectrum disorder predicts future symptom severity, but not psychosis prodrome

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Eussen, M.L.J.M.; de Bruin, E.I.; van Gool, A.R.; Louwerse, E.S.; van der Ende, J.; Verheij, F.; Verhulst, F.C.; Greaves-Lord, K.

2015-01-01

Formal thought disorder (FTD) is a disruption in the flow of thought, which is inferred from disorganisation of spoken language. FTD in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) might be a precursor of psychotic disorders or a manifestation of ASD symptom severity. The current longitudinal study is a

Auditory hallucinations.

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Blom, Jan Dirk

2015-01-01

Auditory hallucinations constitute a phenomenologically rich group of endogenously mediated percepts which are associated with psychiatric, neurologic, otologic, and other medical conditions, but which are also experienced by 10-15% of all healthy individuals in the general population. The group of phenomena is probably best known for its verbal auditory subtype, but it also includes musical hallucinations, echo of reading, exploding-head syndrome, and many other types. The subgroup of verbal auditory hallucinations has been studied extensively with the aid of neuroimaging techniques, and from those studies emerges an outline of a functional as well as a structural network of widely distributed brain areas involved in their mediation. The present chapter provides an overview of the various types of auditory hallucination described in the literature, summarizes our current knowledge of the auditory networks involved in their mediation, and draws on ideas from the philosophy of science and network science to reconceptualize the auditory hallucinatory experience, and point out directions for future research into its neurobiologic substrates. In addition, it provides an overview of known associations with various clinical conditions and of the existing evidence for pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Predicting compliance with command hallucinations: anger, impulsivity and appraisals of voices' power and intent.

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Bucci, Sandra; Birchwood, Max; Twist, Laura; Tarrier, Nicholas; Emsley, Richard; Haddock, Gillian

2013-06-01

Command hallucinations are experienced by 33-74% of people who experience voices, with varying levels of compliance reported. Compliance with command hallucinations can result in acts of aggression, violence, suicide and self-harm; the typical response however is non-compliance or appeasement. Two factors associated with such dangerous behaviours are anger and impulsivity, however few studies have examined their relationship with compliance to command hallucinations. The current study aimed to examine the roles of anger and impulsivity on compliance with command hallucinations in people diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. The study was a cross-sectional design and included individuals who reported auditory hallucinations in the past month. Subjects completed a variety of self-report questionnaire measures. Thirty-two people experiencing command hallucinations, from both in-patient and community settings, were included. The tendency to appraise the voice as powerful, to be impulsive, to experience anger and to regulate anger were significantly associated with compliance with command hallucinations to do harm. Two factors emerged as significant independent predictors of compliance with command hallucinations; omnipotence and impulsivity. An interaction between omnipotence and compliance with commands, via a link with impulsivity, is considered and important clinical factors in the assessment of risk when working with clients experiencing command hallucinations are recommended. The data is highly suggestive and warrants further investigation with a larger sample. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Culture and Hallucinations: Overview and Future Directions

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Larøi, Frank; Luhrmann, Tanya Marie; Bell, Vaughan; Christian, William A.; Deshpande, Smita; Fernyhough, Charles; Jenkins, Janis; Woods, Angela

2014-01-01

A number of studies have explored hallucinations as complex experiences involving interactions between psychological, biological, and environmental factors and mechanisms. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has focused on the role of culture in shaping hallucinations. This article reviews the published research, drawing on the expertise of both anthropologists and psychologists. We argue that the extant body of work suggests that culture does indeed have a significant impact on the experience, understanding, and labeling of hallucinations and that there may be important theoretical and clinical consequences of that observation. We find that culture can affect what is identified as a hallucination, that there are different patterns of hallucination among the clinical and nonclinical populations, that hallucinations are often culturally meaningful, that hallucinations occur at different rates in different settings; that culture affects the meaning and characteristics of hallucinations associated with psychosis, and that the cultural variations of psychotic hallucinations may have implications for the clinical outcome of those who struggle with psychosis. We conclude that a clinician should never assume that the mere report of what seems to be a hallucination is necessarily a symptom of pathology and that the patient’s cultural background needs to be taken into account when assessing and treating hallucinations. PMID:24936082

A STUDY OF THOUGHT, LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION (T.L.C) DISORDERS IN SCHIZOPHRNIA*

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Mazumdar, Pralay Kumar; Chaturvedi, S.K.; Gopinath, P.S.

1988-01-01

SUMMARY This study examines in detail - i) the magnitude, nature and severity of thought disorder in schizophrenia, ii) the correlations between type and severity of thought disorder with socio-demographic and clinical variables, and iii) differences between different subtypes of schizophrenia. Forty five schizophrenics (Research Diagnostic Criteria) were assessed by ‘live’ interview as well as tape recorded interviews. Instruments used for assessment were (a) Scale for assessment of Thought, Language and Communication (Andreasen 1978), (b) Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (Overall & Gorham 1962), (c) Mini Mental State (Folstein 1975), and (d) Clinical and demographic data recording proforma. The Schizophrenic patients were subdivided as (i) Acute and chronic (R.D.C.), (ii) Paranoid and non-paranoid; and (iii) Negative, positive, mixed (Andreasen's criteria) and intragroup and intergroup differences were computed. Poverty of speech, tangentiality, derailment, loss of goal, perseveration were found to be the commonest thought disorders. Positive and negative thought disorders were seen in equiproportion in both positive and negative schizophrenics. Significant differences were noted between thought disorders and education as well as habitat. Rural patients more often had negative formal thought disorders. Literates had more often clanging, neologism, circumstantiality and echolalia. This study provides ample information on the nature of thought disorder in Indian schizophrenic subjects. PMID:21927321

Hallucinations, Delusions and Paranoia

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... hallucinations are frightening, and not all delusions are paranoid in nature. See the doctor. When helping someone ... a history of serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, the hallucinations and/or delusions may be related ...

Musical hallucination associated with hearing loss.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanchez, Tanit Ganz; Rocha, Savya Cybelle Milhomem; Knobel, Keila Alessandra Baraldi; Kii, Márcia Akemi; Santos, Rosa Maria Rodrigues dos; Pereira, Cristiana Borges

2011-01-01

In spite of the fact that musical hallucination have a significant impact on patients' lives, they have received very little attention of experts. Some researchers agree on a combination of peripheral and central dysfunctions as the mechanism that causes hallucination. The most accepted physiopathology of musical hallucination associated to hearing loss (caused by cochlear lesion, cochlear nerve lesion or by interruption of mesencephalon or pontine auditory information) is the disinhibition of auditory memory circuits due to sensory deprivation. Concerning the cortical area involved in musical hallucination, there is evidence that the excitatory mechanism of the superior temporal gyrus, as in epilepsies, is responsible for musical hallucination. In musical release hallucination there is also activation of the auditory association cortex. Finally, considering the laterality, functional studies with musical perception and imagery in normal individuals showed that songs with words cause bilateral temporal activation and melodies activate only the right lobe. The effect of hearing aids on the improvement of musical hallucination as a result of the hearing loss improvement is well documented. It happens because auditory hallucination may be influenced by the external acoustical environment. Neuroleptics, antidepressants and anticonvulsants have been used in the treatment of musical hallucination. Cases of improvement with the administration of carbamazepine, meclobemide and donepezil were reported, but the results obtained were not consistent.

Culture and hallucinations: overview and future directions.

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Larøi, Frank; Luhrmann, Tanya Marie; Bell, Vaughan; Christian, William A; Deshpande, Smita; Fernyhough, Charles; Jenkins, Janis; Woods, Angela

2014-07-01

A number of studies have explored hallucinations as complex experiences involving interactions between psychological, biological, and environmental factors and mechanisms. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has focused on the role of culture in shaping hallucinations. This article reviews the published research, drawing on the expertise of both anthropologists and psychologists. We argue that the extant body of work suggests that culture does indeed have a significant impact on the experience, understanding, and labeling of hallucinations and that there may be important theoretical and clinical consequences of that observation. We find that culture can affect what is identified as a hallucination, that there are different patterns of hallucination among the clinical and nonclinical populations, that hallucinations are often culturally meaningful, that hallucinations occur at different rates in different settings; that culture affects the meaning and characteristics of hallucinations associated with psychosis, and that the cultural variations of psychotic hallucinations may have implications for the clinical outcome of those who struggle with psychosis. We conclude that a clinician should never assume that the mere report of what seems to be a hallucination is necessarily a symptom of pathology and that the patient's cultural background needs to be taken into account when assessing and treating hallucinations. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.

Examining the Relationship between Food Thought Suppression and Binge Eating Disorder

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Barnes, Rachel D.; Masheb, Robin M.; White, Marney A.; Grilo, Carlos M.

2013-01-01

Food thought suppression, or purposely attempting to avoid thoughts of food, is related to a number of unwanted eating- and weight-related consequences, particularly in dieting and obese individuals. Little is known about the possible significance of food thought suppression in clinical samples, particularly obese patients who binge eat. This study examined food thought suppression in 150 obese patients seeking treatment for binge eating disorder (BED). Food thought suppression was not associated with binge eating frequency or body mass index but was significantly associated with higher current levels of eating disorder psychopathology and variables pertaining to obesity, dieting, and binge eating. PMID:23751246

Thought-action fusion and anxiety disorders symptoms in normal adolescents.

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Muris, P; Meesters, C; Rassin, E; Merckelbach, H; Campbell, J

2001-07-01

The present study examined thought-action fusion (TAF) in a large sample of normal adolescents (n=427). Participants completed the Thought-Action Fusion Questionnaire for Adolescents (TAFQ-A) and scales measuring trait anxiety, symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, other anxiety disorders, and depression. Results showed that the TAFQ-A is a reliable instrument assessing two dimensions of TAF, viz. Morality (i.e., the belief that unacceptable thoughts are morally equivalent to overt actions) and Likelihood (i.e., the belief that thinking of an unacceptable or disturbing situation will increase the probability that that situation actually occurs). Furthermore, TAF was not only associated with symptoms of OCD, but also with symptoms of other anxiety disorders and depression. However, when controlling for levels of trait anxiety, most connections between TAF and anxiety disorders symptoms disappeared. Symptoms of OCD and generalised anxiety remained significantly related to TAF. Altogether, the data are supportive of the notion that TAF is involved in a broad range of anxiety disorders and in particular OCD.

The psychopathology of hallucinations--a methodological analysis.

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Lothane, Z

1982-12-01

A psychiatry based on operational and dynamic principles requires a new definition of hallucinations which is both heuristically useful and helpful for the understanding of the phenomenon of hallucinations. The time-hallowed definition of hallucinations as 'perceptions without stimulation of the sense organs' is both incorrect and a relic of late 19th century para-physiological thinking. Heuristically it leads into a blind alley. Central to the redefinition of hallucinations is the conception of the hallucinator, the author of his hallucinations, homologous to the dreamer, the author of his dreams. This idea was held firmly by early French 19th century clinicians, who were inspired by a holistic and operational conception in philosophy. Hallucinations are a multifaceted complex human mental activity and defined by means of a number of parameters held together as an indivisible whole. Hallucinations are described phenomenologically, psychologically, dynamically, psychodynamically, emotionally, logically, nosologically, and interpersonally.

Transcranial direct current stimulation as a treatment for auditory hallucinations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koops, Sanne; van den Brink, Hilde; Sommer, Iris E C

2015-01-01

Auditory hallucinations (AH) are a symptom of several psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. In a significant minority of patients, AH are resistant to antipsychotic medication. Alternative treatment options for this medication resistant group are scarce and most of them focus on coping with

Misleading hallucinations in unrecognized narcolepsy.

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Szucs, A; Janszky, J; Holló, A; Migléczi, G; Halász, P

2003-10-01

To describe psychosis-like hallucinatory states in unrecognized narcolepsy. Two patients with hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations are presented. Both patients had realistic and complex - multi-modal and scenic-daytime sexual hallucinations leading, in the first case, to a legal procedure because of false accusation, and in the second, to serious workplace conflicts. Both patients were convinced of the reality of their hallucinatory experiences but later both were able to recognize their hallucinatory character. Clinical data, a multiple sleep latency test, polysomnography, and HLA typing revealed that both patients suffered from narcolepsy. We suggest that in unrecognized narcolepsy with daytime hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations the diagnostic procedure may mistakenly incline towards delusional psychoses. Daytime realistic hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations may also have forensic consequences and mislead legal evaluation. Useful clinical features in differentiating narcolepsy from psychoses are: the presence of other narcoleptic symptoms, features of hallucinations, and response to adequate medication.

A clinical study of auditory hallucination by single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) using N-isopropyl-p-[123I] iodoamphetamine (IMP)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gyobu, Tsuyoshi; Inao, Gyoshun; Ii, Masayasu; Matsuda, Hiroshi; Hisada, Kinichi.

1988-01-01

SPECT images with N-isopropyl-p-I-123 iodoamphetamine (IMP) were reviewed in 24 right-handed patients with hallucination (H Group), comprising schizophrenic disorder (20), alcohol hallucinosis (2), epileptic hallucinosis (one), and organic mental disorder (one), and 50 subjects without hallucination (non-H Group), consisting of 39 patients with mental or organic central nervous system disorder and 11 healthy volunteers. Early SPECT images showed an increased uptake of IMP in the auditory area and angular gyrus in 23 patients of H Group and 3 persons of non-H Group. A similar uptake of IMP was seen on delayed SPECT images in 12 patients of H Group and 4 patients with a history of hallucination of non-H Group. There were no SPECT findings specific to diseases. For schizophrenic patients, increased and decreased uptakes of IMP were seen in the striatolimbic region and in the bilateral frontal lobes, respectively, irrespective of hallucination. Factors contributing to increased uptake of IMP are discussed. (Namekawa, K.) 84 refs

Examining the relationship between food thought suppression and binge eating disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Barnes, Rachel D; Masheb, Robin M; White, Marney A; Grilo, Carlos M

2013-10-01

Food thought suppression, or purposely attempting to avoid thoughts of food, is related to a number of unwanted eating- and weight-related consequences, particularly in dieting and obese individuals. Little is known about the possible significance of food thought suppression in clinical samples, particularly obese patients who binge eat. This study examined food thought suppression in 150 obese patients seeking treatment for binge eating disorder (BED). Food thought suppression was not associated with binge eating frequency or body mass index but was significantly associated with higher current levels of eating disorder psychopathology and variables pertaining to obesity, dieting, and binge eating. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Default mode network links to visual hallucinations: A comparison between Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy.

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Franciotti, Raffaella; Delli Pizzi, Stefano; Perfetti, Bernardo; Tartaro, Armando; Bonanni, Laura; Thomas, Astrid; Weis, Luca; Biundo, Roberta; Antonini, Angelo; Onofrj, Marco

2015-08-01

Studying default mode network activity or connectivity in different parkinsonisms, with or without visual hallucinations, could highlight its roles in clinical phenotypes' expression. Multiple system atrophy is the archetype of parkinsonism without visual hallucinations, variably appearing instead in Parkinson's disease (PD). We aimed to evaluate default mode network functions in multiple system atrophy in comparison with PD. Functional magnetic resonance imaging evaluated default mode network activity and connectivity in 15 multiple system atrophy patients, 15 healthy controls, 15 early PD patients matched for disease duration, 30 severe PD patients (15 with and 15 without visual hallucinations), matched with multiple system atrophy for disease severity. Cortical thickness and neuropsychological evaluations were also performed. Multiple system atrophy had reduced default mode network activity compared with controls and PD with hallucinations, and no differences with PD (early or severe) without hallucinations. In PD with visual hallucinations, activity and connectivity was preserved compared with controls and higher than in other groups. In early PD, connectivity was lower than in controls but higher than in multiple system atrophy and severe PD without hallucinations. Cortical thickness was reduced in severe PD, with and without hallucinations, and correlated only with disease duration. Higher anxiety scores were found in patients without hallucinations. Default mode network activity and connectivity was higher in PD with visual hallucinations and reduced in multiple system atrophy and PD without visual hallucinations. Cortical thickness comparisons suggest that functional, rather than structural, changes underlie the activity and connectivity differences. © 2015 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Negative hallucinations, dreams and hallucinations: The framing structure and its representation in the analytic setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Perelberg, Rosine Jozef

2016-12-01

This paper explores the meaning of a patient's hallucinatory experiences in the course of a five times a week analysis. I will locate my understanding within the context of André Green's ideas on the role of the framing structure and the negative hallucination in the structuring of the mind. The understanding of the transference and countertransference was crucial in the creation of meaning and enabling the transformations that took place in the analytic process. Through a detailed analysis of a clinical example the author examines Bion's distinction between hysterical hallucinations and psychotic hallucinations and formulates her own hypothesis about the distinctions between the two. The paper suggests that whilst psychotic hallucinations express a conflict between life and death, in the hysterical hallucination it is between love and hate. The paper also contains some reflections on the dramatic nature of the analytic encounter. Copyright © 2016 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

An EMG Study of the Lip Muscles during Covert Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Schizophrenia

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Rapin, Lucile; Dohen, Marion; Polosan, Mircea; Perrier, Pascal; Loevenbruck, Hélène

2013-01-01

Purpose: "Auditory verbal hallucinations" (AVHs) are speech perceptions in the absence of external stimulation. According to an influential theoretical account of AVHs in schizophrenia, a deficit in inner-speech monitoring may cause the patients' verbal thoughts to be perceived as external voices. The account is based on a…

Thought Action Fusion in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

OpenAIRE

Þahin ÇÝFTÇÝ; Tacettin KURU

2013-01-01

Thought Action Fusion (TAF) is defined as tought and action percieved as equivalent to each other or as an exaggerated power given to idea. With the usage of “Thought Action Fusion Scale” which is created by Shafran (1996), is began to investigate its role in psychopathologies. Researches about the three-component structure which has TAF-Likelihood-Self, TAF-Likelihood-Others, TAF-Moral, are concentrated especially around the obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). TAF alleged includi...

Thought Action Fusion in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sahin CIFTCI

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Thought Action Fusion (TAF is defined as tought and action percieved as equivalent to each other or as an exaggerated power given to idea. With the usage of “Thought Action Fusion Scale” which is created by Shafran (1996, is began to investigate its role in psychopathologies. Researches about the three-component structure which has TAF-Likelihood-Self, TAF-Likelihood-Others, TAF-Moral, are concentrated especially around the obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD. TAF alleged including a certain level also in the normal population, was seen in the relationship with the inflated responsability in OCD, thought suppression and neutralising, was tried to explain the direction of this relationship in the mediationel model framework.

Insightful hallucination: psychopathology or paranormal phenomenon?

Science.gov (United States)

Gadit, Amin A Muhammad

2011-03-15

This report describes a 26-year-old man who was so emotionally attached to his mother that the mere thought of separating from her caused immense anxiety. The death of his mother after a brief illness resulted in prolonged bereavement. However, the patient started seeing and talking to his mother after her death, which led to huge improvement in his mood and social functioning. His wife brought him in for consultation but no obvious psychopathology was detected. This gave rise to the dilemma of whether to consider this a real psychopathology and treat it, or to disregard this reported hallucination. No active treatment is being given to this patient at the moment.

Subjective Loudness and Reality of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations and Activation of the Inner Speech Processing Network

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vercammen, Ans; Knegtering, Henderikus; Bruggeman, Richard; Aleman, Andre

Background: One of the most influential cognitive models of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) suggests that a failure to adequately monitor the production of one's own inner speech leads to verbal thought being misidentified as an alien voice. However, it is unclear whether this theory can

Disjunctivism, hallucinations, and metacognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Jérôme, Dokic; Jean-Rémy, Martin

2012-09-01

Perceptual experiences have been construed either as representational mental states-Representationalism-or as direct mental relations to the external world-Disjunctivism. Both conceptions are critical reactions to the so-called 'Argument from Hallucination', according to which perceptions cannot be about the external world, since they are subjectively indiscriminable from other, hallucinatory experiences, which are about sense-data or mind-dependent entities. Representationalism agrees that perceptions and hallucinations share their most specific mental kind, but accounts for hallucinations as misrepresentations of the external world. According to Disjunctivism, the phenomenal character of perceptions is exhausted by worldly objects and features, and thus must be different from the phenomenal character of hallucinations. Disjunctivism claims that subjective indiscriminability is not the result of a common experiential ground, but is because of our inability to discriminate, from the inside, hallucinations from perceptions. At first sight, Representationalism is more congenial to the way cognitive science deals with perception. However, empirically oriented revisions of Disjunctivism could be developed and tested by giving a metacognitive account of hallucinations. Two versions of this account can be formulated, depending on whether metacognition is understood as explicit metarepresentation or as implicit monitoring of first-order informational states. The first version faces serious objections, but the second is more promising, as it embodies a more realistic view of perceptual phenomenology as having both sensory and affective aspects. Affect-based phenomenology is constituted by various metacognitive feelings, such as the feeling of being perceptually confronted with the world itself, rather than with pictures or mere representations. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012 doi: 10.1002/wcs.1190 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright

Thought Action Fusion in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Þahin ÇÝFTÇÝ

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Thought Action Fusion (TAF is defined as tought and action percieved as equivalent to each other or as an exaggerated power given to idea. With the usage of “Thought Action Fusion Scale” which is created by Shafran (1996, is began to investigate its role in psychopathologies. Researches about the three-component structure which has TAF-Likelihood-Self, TAF-Likelihood-Others, TAF-Moral, are concentrated especially around the obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD. TAF alleged including a certain level also in the normal population, was seen in the relationship with the inflated responsability in OCD, thought suppression and neutralising, was tried to explain the direction of this relationship in the mediationel model framework. [JCBPR 2013; 2(3.000: 138-146

Thought Suppression in Patients With Bipolar Disorder

OpenAIRE

Miklowitz, David J.; Alatiq, Yousra; Geddes, John R.; Goodwin, Guy M.; Williams, J. Mark G.

2010-01-01

Suppression of negative thoughts has been observed under experimental conditions among patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) but has never been examined among patients with bipolar disorder (BD). Patients with BD (n = 36), patients with MDD (n = 20), and healthy controls (n = 20) completed a task that required unscrambling 6-word strings into 5-word sentences, leaving out 1 word. The extra word allowed the sentences to be completed in a negative, neutral, or ?hyperpositive? (manic/goa...

Auditory hallucinations and PTSD in ex-POWS

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Crompton, Laura; Lahav, Yael; Solomon, Zahava

2017-01-01

(PTSD) symptoms, over time. Former prisoners of war (ex-POWs) from the 1973 Yom Kippur War (n = 99) with and without PTSD and comparable veterans (n = 103) were assessed twice, in 1991 (T1) and 2003 (T2) in regard to auditory hallucinations and PTSD symptoms. Findings indicated that ex-POWs who suffered...... from PTSD reported higher levels of auditory hallucinations at T2 as well as increased hallucinations over time, compared to ex-POWs without PTSD and combatants who did not endure captivity. The relation between PTSD and auditory hallucinations was unidirectional, so that the PTSD overall score at T1...... predicted an increase in auditory hallucinations between T1 and T2, but not vice versa. Assessing the role of PTSD clusters in predicting hallucinations revealed that intrusion symptoms had a unique contribution, compared to avoidance and hyperarousal symptoms. The findings suggest that auditory...

Electroconvulsive Therapy in Functional Hallucination: Scope and Challenges

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Sulochana Joshi

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Functional hallucinations are hallucinations triggered by a stimulus in the same modality and cooccur with it. They are rare in occurrence; however, their rarity has no significance as psychopathology till date. Also, very little is known about the treatment of such hallucinations. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT has been tested for several psychiatric illnesses and has a few relative contraindications; however, it has not previously been used in treating functional hallucinations. We report on a female patient with paranoid schizophrenia who experienced functional hallucinations continuously despite the use of adequate risperidone, which controlled other symptoms. She was treated with ECT which resolved the functional hallucinations. The case highlights the need to ponder on the significance of the phenomenon as well as treatment of this psychopathology by ECT. It also underscores ECT as a treatment option for this kind of hallucination.

Eating-related Intrusive Thoughts Inventory: exploring the dimensionality of eating disorder symptoms.

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Perpiñá, Conxa; Roncero, María; Belloch, Amparo; Sánchez-Reales, Sergio

2011-08-01

The aims of this study were, first, to examine the structure and validity of the Eating-related Intrusive Thoughts Inventory (INPIAS), a self-report questionnaire designed to assess eating disorders related to intrusive thoughts (EDITs), and second, to explore the existence of a continuum ranging from normal to abnormal thought intrusions related to eating, weight, and shape. Participants were 574 (408 women) nonclinical community individuals. Analyses revealed that EDITs can be clustered into three sets: appearance-dieting, need to exercise, and thoughts-impulses related to eating disorders. EDITs' consequences showed a two-factor structure: emotional consequences/personal meaning and thought-action fusion responsibility; and four factors of strategies: "anxiety," suppression, obsessive-compulsive rituals, and distraction. The sample was then divided according to reported restrained eating. The High dietary restraint group reported a higher frequency of EDITs, whereas differences in the other factors were mediated by depression, anxiety, and obsessionality. The results suggest that eating disorder-related cognitions are experienced by nonclinical individuals, and distributed on a continuum.

Musical Hallucinations and Schizophrenia: Case Report

OpenAIRE

Catarina Klut; Salomé Xavier; João Graça; Graça Cardoso

2013-01-01

Musical hallucinations are a type of complex auditory hallucinations. They are a relatively rare and etiologically heterogeneous phenomenon. Their major causes are deafness, organic brain disease, epilepsy and psychiatric diseases, including schizophrenia. Based on a clinical case report the authors aim to review and discuss the etiology and psychopathology of musical hallucinations. It seems to be an under recognized phenomenon that, if systematically inquired, may enable a better understand...

The relationship of thought suppression and recent rape to disordered eating in emerging adulthood.

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Brittany; Fischer, Sarah; Stojek, Monika; Becker, Kendra

2014-02-01

This study utilizes a prospective design to examine the interaction of recent rape/attempted rape with individual differences in thought suppression on increases in disordered eating symptoms during late adolescence/emerging adulthood. Thought suppression is the attempt to suppress unwanted thoughts. We propose that emerging adult women who have experienced recent rape/attempted rape and tend to use thought suppression as a coping mechanism are at risk for increases in disordered eating. 319 women completed the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, the Sexual Experiences Survey, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and the White Bear Thought Suppression Inventory in their first month of college and three months later. The experience of recent rape/attempted rape in the three months prior to the assessment accounted for unique variance in disordered eating at Time 2. Levels of thought suppression assessed at Time 1 significantly moderated the influence of recent rape/attempted rape on disordered eating at Time 2. Copyright © 2013 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Examining the Relationship between Food Thought Suppression and Binge Eating Disorder

OpenAIRE

Barnes, Rachel D.; Masheb, Robin M.; White, Marney A.; Grilo, Carlos M.

2013-01-01

Food thought suppression, or purposely attempting to avoid thoughts of food, is related to a number of unwanted eating- and weight-related consequences, particularly in dieting and obese individuals. Little is known about the possible significance of food thought suppression in clinical samples, particularly obese patients who binge eat. This study examined food thought suppression in 150 obese patients seeking treatment for binge eating disorder (BED). Food thought suppression was not associ...

Brain functional connectivity during the experience of thought blocks in schizophrenic patients with persistent auditory verbal hallucinations: an EEG study.

Science.gov (United States)

Angelopoulos, Elias; Koutsoukos, Elias; Maillis, Antonis; Papadimitriou, George N; Stefanis, Costas

2014-03-01

Thought blocks (TBs) are characterized by regular interruptions in the stream of thought. Outward signs are abrupt and repeated interruptions in the flow of conversation or actions while subjective experience is that of a total and uncontrollable emptying of the mind. In the very limited bibliography regarding TB, the phenomenon is thought to be conceptualized as a disturbance of consciousness that can be attributed to stoppages of continuous information processing due to an increase in the volume of information to be processed. In an attempt to investigate potential expression of the phenomenon on the functional properties of electroencephalographic (EEG) activity, an EEG study was contacted in schizophrenic patients with persisting auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) who additionally exhibited TBs. In this case, we hypothesized that the persistent and dense AVHs could serve the role of an increased information flow that the brain is unable to process, a condition that is perceived by the person as TB. Phase synchronization analyses performed on EEG segments during the experience of TBs showed that synchrony values exhibited a long-range common mode of coupling (grouped behavior) among the left temporal area and the remaining central and frontal brain areas. These common synchrony-fluctuation schemes were observed for 0.5 to 2s and were detected in a 4-s window following the estimated initiation of the phenomenon. The observation was frequency specific and detected in the broad alpha band region (6-12Hz). The introduction of synchrony entropy (SE) analysis applied on the cumulative synchrony distribution showed that TB states were characterized by an explicit preference of the system to be functioned at low values of synchrony, while the synchrony values are broadly distributed during the recovery state. Our results indicate that during TB states, the phase locking of several brain areas were converged uniformly in a narrow band of low synchrony values and in a

Interaction of language, auditory and memory brain networks in auditory verbal hallucinations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Curcic-Blake, Branislava; Ford, Judith M.; Hubl, Daniela; Orlov, Natasza D.; Sommer, Iris E.; Waters, Flavie; Allen, Paul; Jardri, Renaud; Woodruff, Peter W.; David, Olivier; Mulert, Christoph; Woodward, Todd S.; Aleman, Andre

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) occur in psychotic disorders, but also as a symptom of other conditions and even in healthy people. Several current theories on the origin of AVH converge, with neuroimaging studies suggesting that the language, auditory and memory/limbic networks are of

Musical Hallucinations and Schizophrenia: Case Report

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Catarina Klut

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Musical hallucinations are a type of complex auditory hallucinations. They are a relatively rare and etiologically heterogeneous phenomenon. Their major causes are deafness, organic brain disease, epilepsy and psychiatric diseases, including schizophrenia. Based on a clinical case report the authors aim to review and discuss the etiology and psychopathology of musical hallucinations. It seems to be an under recognized phenomenon that, if systematically inquired, may enable a better understanding and characterization of the patient ́s clinical picture.

Hallucinations in Healthy Older Adults: An Overview of the Literature and Perspectives for Future Research

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Johanna C. Badcock

2017-07-01

Full Text Available KEY POINTS➢ Studies suggest a substantial minority of healthy older adults have hallucinatory experiences, in line with existing evidence on hallucinations in other age groups, though it is still unclear if hallucination prevalence increases or declines with age in older cohorts.➢ Stigma attached to both hallucinations and ageing leads to considerable under-reporting of these experiences in healthy older adults and may negatively bias how professionals, family members, and the public respond.➢ Why and when hallucinations in healthy older adults remit, persist, or progress to other clinical disorders remains poorly understood.➢ Current evidence points to a range of factors associated with hallucinations in older adults including decline in sensory or cognitive functioning, poor sleep, and psychosocial stressors (e.g., social isolation, loneliness, and bereavement, highlighting the need for accurate assessment and tailored interventions.Hallucinations, though common in youth and younger adults, are not the preserve of these age groups. Accumulating evidence shows that hallucinatory experiences are also present at surprisingly high rates in healthy older adults in the general community. Furthermore, stigma and misunderstanding of hallucinations, together with ageism, may lead to under-reporting of these experiences by older adults, and misdiagnosis or mismanagement by health and mental health practitioners. Consequently, improved public and professional knowledge is needed about the nature and significance of hallucinations with advancing age. The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview, and critical analysis, of research on the prevalence, psychosocial, and neurobiological factors associated with hallucinations in people aged 60 years and over. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review of its kind in the literature. The evidence supports a dynamic conceptualization of hallucinations, in which the

Impaired self-monitoring of inner speech in schizophrenia patients with verbal hallucinations and in non-clinical individuals prone to hallucinations

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Gildas Brébion

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Background: Previous research has shown that various memory errors reflecting failure in the self-monitoring of speech were associated with auditory/verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia patients and with proneness to hallucinations in non-clinical individuals. Method: We administered to 57 schizophrenia patients and 60 healthy participants a verbal memory task involving free recall and recognition of lists of words with different structures (high-frequency, low-frequency, and semantically-organisable words. Extra-list intrusions in free recall were tallied, and the response bias reflecting tendency to make false recognitions of non-presented words was computed for each list. Results: In the male patient subsample, extra-list intrusions were positively associated with verbal hallucinations and inversely associated with negative symptoms. In the healthy participants the extra-list intrusions were positively associated with proneness to hallucinations. A liberal response bias in the recognition of the high-frequency words was associated with verbal hallucinations in male patients and with proneness to hallucinations in healthy men. Meanwhile, a conservative response bias for these high-frequency words was associated with negative symptoms in male patients and with social anhedonia in healthy men. Conclusions: Misattribution of inner speech to an external source, reflected by false recollection of familiar material, seems to underlie both clinical and non-clinical hallucinations. Further, both clinical and non-clinical negative symptoms may exert on verbal memory errors an effect opposite to that of hallucinations.

Exploratory study of once-daily transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a treatment for auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Fröhlich, F; Burrello, T N; Mellin, J M; Cordle, A L; Lustenberger, C M; Gilmore, J H; Jarskog, L F

2016-03-01

Auditory hallucinations are resistant to pharmacotherapy in about 25% of adults with schizophrenia. Treatment with noninvasive brain stimulation would provide a welcomed additional tool for the clinical management of auditory hallucinations. A recent study found a significant reduction in auditory hallucinations in people with schizophrenia after five days of twice-daily transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) that simultaneously targeted left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left temporo-parietal cortex. We hypothesized that once-daily tDCS with stimulation electrodes over left frontal and temporo-parietal areas reduces auditory hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. We performed a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled study that evaluated five days of daily tDCS of the same cortical targets in 26 outpatients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder with auditory hallucinations. We found a significant reduction in auditory hallucinations measured by the Auditory Hallucination Rating Scale (F2,50=12.22, PtDCS for treatment of auditory hallucinations and the pronounced response in the sham-treated group in this study contrasts with the previous finding and demonstrates the need for further optimization and evaluation of noninvasive brain stimulation strategies. In particular, higher cumulative doses and higher treatment frequencies of tDCS together with strategies to reduce placebo responses should be investigated. Additionally, consideration of more targeted stimulation to engage specific deficits in temporal organization of brain activity in patients with auditory hallucinations may be warranted. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Visual hallucinations in schizophrenia: confusion between imagination and perception.

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Brébion, Gildas; Ohlsen, Ruth I; Pilowsky, Lyn S; David, Anthony S

2008-05-01

An association between hallucinations and reality-monitoring deficit has been repeatedly observed in patients with schizophrenia. Most data concern auditory/verbal hallucinations. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between visual hallucinations and a specific type of reality-monitoring deficit, namely confusion between imagined and perceived pictures. Forty-one patients with schizophrenia and 43 healthy control participants completed a reality-monitoring task. Thirty-two items were presented either as written words or as pictures. After the presentation phase, participants had to recognize the target words and pictures among distractors, and then remember their mode of presentation. All groups of participants recognized the pictures better than the words, except the patients with visual hallucinations, who presented the opposite pattern. The participants with visual hallucinations made more misattributions to pictures than did the others, and higher ratings of visual hallucinations were correlated with increased tendency to remember words as pictures. No association with auditory hallucinations was revealed. Our data suggest that visual hallucinations are associated with confusion between visual mental images and perception.

Persistent Interictal Musical Hallucination in a Patient With Mesial Temporal Sclerosis-Related Epilepsy: First Case Report and Etiopathological Hypothesis.

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Borelli, Paolo; Vedovello, Marcella; Braga, Massimiliano; Pederzoli, Massimo; Beretta, Sandro

2016-12-01

Musical hallucination is a disorder of complex sound processing of instrumental music, songs, choirs, chants, etc. The underlying pathologies include moderate to severe acquired hearing loss (the auditory equivalent of Charles Bonnet syndrome), psychiatric illnesses (depression, schizophrenia), drug intoxication (benzodiazepines, salicylate, pentoxifylline, propranolol), traumatic lesions along the acoustic pathways, and epilepsy. The hallucinations are most likely to begin late in life; 70% of patients are women. Musical hallucination has no known specific therapy. Treating the underlying cause is the most effective approach; neuroleptic and antidepressant medications have only rarely succeeded.Musical hallucination in epilepsy typically presents as simple partial seizures originating in the lateral temporal cortex. To our knowledge, no formal report of musical hallucination in the interictal state has been published before. In contrast, other interictal psychotic features are a relatively common complication, especially in patients with long-standing drug-resistant epilepsy.We describe a 62-year-old woman with a long history of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy whose musical hallucination was solely interictal. We speculate on the possible link between temporal epilepsy and her hallucination. We hypothesize that, as a result of her epileptic activity-induced damage, an imbalance developed between the excitatory and inhibitory projections connecting the mesial temporal cortex to the other auditory structures. These structures may have generated hyperactivity in the lateral temporal cortex through a "release" mechanism that eventually resulted in musical hallucination.

Threatening auditory hallucinations and Cotard syndrome in Parkinson disease.

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Factor, Stewart A; Molho, Eric S

2004-01-01

Psychotic symptoms are commonly reported in patients with Parkinson disease (PD). In particular, patients experience nonthreatening visual hallucinations that can occur with insight (so called hallucinosis) or without. Auditory hallucinations are uncommon, and schizophrenialike symptoms such as pejorative and threatening auditory hallucinations and delusions that are persecutory, referential, somatic, religious, or grandiose have rarely been reported. The authors present 2 PD patients who experienced threatening auditory hallucinations, without visual hallucinations, and schizophrenialike delusions with detailed description of the clinical phenomenology including 1 patient with Cotard syndrome.

Suggestibility and signal detection performance in hallucination-prone students.

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Alganami, Fatimah; Varese, Filippo; Wagstaff, Graham F; Bentall, Richard P

2017-03-01

Auditory hallucinations are associated with signal detection biases. We examine the extent to which suggestions influence performance on a signal detection task (SDT) in highly hallucination-prone and low hallucination-prone students. We also explore the relationship between trait suggestibility, dissociation and hallucination proneness. In two experiments, students completed on-line measures of hallucination proneness (the revised Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale; LSHS-R), trait suggestibility (Inventory of Suggestibility) and dissociation (Dissociative Experiences Scale-II). Students in the upper and lower tertiles of the LSHS-R performed an auditory SDT. Prior to the task, suggestions were made pertaining to the number of expected targets (Experiment 1, N = 60: high vs. low suggestions; Experiment 2, N = 62, no suggestion vs. high suggestion vs. no voice suggestion). Correlational and regression analyses indicated that trait suggestibility and dissociation predicted hallucination proneness. Highly hallucination-prone students showed a higher SDT bias in both studies. In Experiment 1, both bias scores were significantly affected by suggestions to the same degree. In Experiment 2, highly hallucination-prone students were more reactive to the high suggestion condition than the controls. Suggestions may affect source-monitoring judgments, and this effect may be greater in those who have a predisposition towards hallucinatory experiences.

Hallucinations, loneliness, and social isolation in Alzheimer's disease.

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El Haj, Mohamad; Jardri, Renaud; Larøi, Frank; Antoine, Pascal

2016-01-01

Cognitive and functional compromise, as frequently observed in Alzheimer's disease (AD), hinders communication and social interactions. One consequence of this hindrance may be a feeling of loneliness. Moreover, emptiness and boredom, as observed in social isolation and loneliness, may thus be compensated for by creating imagined stimuli. Conditions of loneliness may be viewed as potentially generating hallucinatory experiences. To assess this assumption, the present study explored the relationship between social isolation, loneliness, and hallucinations in a sample of 22 mild AD participants and 24 elderly, healthy controls. Participants were assessed using the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale, the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and a scale exploring contact with others and social participation. More hallucinatory experiences, social isolation, and loneliness were found in the AD group than in the healthy control group. Moreover, significant correlations were observed between hallucinations and loneliness and between hallucinations and social isolation in both groups. Finally, hallucinations were predicted by social isolation. Hallucinations may constitute a compensatory mechanism that aims to fulfil communication needs in lonely, elderly participants. Hallucinations may also be regarded as experiences that allow certain participants to escape the cycle of boredom, emptiness, and affective deprivation caused by social isolation.

Auditory Hallucinations as Translational Psychiatry: Evidence from Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

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Hugdahl, Kenneth

2017-12-01

In this invited review article, I present a translational perspective and overview of our research on auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia at the University of Bergen, Norway, with a focus on the neuronal mechanisms underlying the phenomenology of experiencing "hearing voices". An auditory verbal hallucination (i.e. hearing a voice) is defined as a sensory experience in the absence of a corresponding external sensory source that could explain the phenomenological experience. I suggest a general frame or scheme for the study of auditory verbal hallucinations, called Levels of Explanation. Using a Levels of Explanation approach, mental phenomena can be described and explained at different levels (cultural, clinical, cognitive, brain-imaging, cellular and molecular). Another way of saying this is that, to advance knowledge in a research field, it is not only necessary to replicate findings, but also to show how evidence obtained with one method, and at one level of explanation, converges with evidence obtained with another method at another level. To achieve breakthroughs in our understanding of auditory verbal hallucinations, we have to advance vertically through the various levels, rather than the more common approach of staying at our favourite level and advancing horizontally (e.g., more advanced techniques and data acquisition analyses). The horizontal expansion will, however, not advance a deeper understanding of how an auditory verbal hallucination spontaneously starts and stops. Finally, I present data from the clinical, cognitive, brain-imaging, and cellular levels, where data from one level validate and support data at another level, called converging of evidence. Using a translational approach, the current status of auditory verbal hallucinations is that they implicate speech perception areas in the left temporal lobe, impairing perception of and attention to external sounds. Preliminary results also show that amygdala is implicated in the emotional �

Auditory Hallucinations as Translational Psychiatry: Evidence from Magnetic Resonance Imaging

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Kenneth Hugdahl

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In this invited review article, I present a translational perspective and overview of our research on auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia at the University of Bergen, Norway, with a focus on the neuronal mechanisms underlying the phenomenology of experiencing "hearing voices". An auditory verbal hallucination (i.e. hearing a voice is defined as a sensory experience in the absence of a corresponding external sensory source that could explain the phenomenological experience. I suggest a general frame or scheme for the study of auditory verbal hallucinations, called Levels of Explanation. Using a Levels of Explanation approach, mental phenomena can be described and explained at different levels (cultural, clinical, cognitive, brain-imaging, cellular and molecular. Another way of saying this is that, to advance knowledge in a research field, it is not only necessary to replicate findings, but also to show how evidence obtained with one method, and at one level of explanation, converges with evidence obtained with another method at another level. To achieve breakthroughs in our understanding of auditory verbal hallucinations, we have to advance vertically through the various levels, rather than the more common approach of staying at our favourite level and advancing horizontally (e.g., more advanced techniques and data acquisition analyses. The horizontal expansion will, however, not advance a deeper understanding of how an auditory verbal hallucination spontaneously starts and stops. Finally, I present data from the clinical, cognitive, brain-imaging, and cellular levels, where data from one level validate and support data at another level, called converging of evidence. Using a translational approach, the current status of auditory verbal hallucinations is that they implicate speech perception areas in the left temporal lobe, impairing perception of and attention to external sounds. Preliminary results also show that amygdala is implicated in

The linguistics of schizophrenia: thought disturbance as language pathology across positive symptoms.

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Hinzen, Wolfram; Rosselló, Joana

2015-01-01

We hypothesize that linguistic (dis-)organization in the schizophrenic brain plays a more central role in the pathogenesis of this disease than commonly supposed. Against the standard view, that schizophrenia is a disturbance of thought or selfhood, we argue that the origins of the relevant forms of thought and selfhood at least partially depend on language. The view that they do not is premised by a theoretical conception of language that we here identify as 'Cartesian' and contrast with a recent 'un-Cartesian' model. This linguistic model empirically argues for both (i) a one-to-one correlation between human-specific thought or meaning and forms of grammatical organization, and (ii) an integrative and co-dependent view of linguistic cognition and its sensory-motor dimensions. Core dimensions of meaning mediated by grammar on this model specifically concern forms of referential and propositional meaning. A breakdown of these is virtually definitional of core symptoms. Within this model the three main positive symptoms of schizophrenia fall into place as failures in language-mediated forms of meaning, manifest either as a disorder of speech perception (Auditory Verbal Hallucinations), abnormal speech production running without feedback control (Formal Thought Disorder), or production of abnormal linguistic content (Delusions). Our hypothesis makes testable predictions for the language profile of schizophrenia across symptoms; it simplifies the cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia while not being inconsistent with a pattern of neurocognitive deficits and their correlations with symptoms; and it predicts persistent findings on disturbances of language-related circuitry in the schizophrenic brain.

The linguistics of schizophrenia: thought disturbance as language pathology across positive symptoms

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Wolfram eHinzen

2015-07-01

Full Text Available We hypothesize that linguistic (dis- organization in the schizophrenic brain plays a much more central role in the pathogenesis of this disease than commonly supposed. Against the standard view, that schizophrenia is a disturbance of thought or selfhood, we argue that the origins of the relevant forms of thought and selfhood at least partially depend on language. The view that they do not is premised by a theoretical conception of language that we here identify as ‘Cartesian’ and contrast with a recent ‘un-Cartesian’ model. This linguistic model empirically argues for both (i a one-to-one correlation between human-specific thought or meaning and forms of grammatical organization, and (ii an integrative and co-dependent view of linguistic cognition and its sensory-motor dimensions. Core dimensions of meaning mediated by grammar on this model specifically concern forms of referential and propositional meaning. A breakdown of these is virtually definitional of core symptoms. Within this model the three main positive symptoms of schizophrenia fall into place as failures in language-mediated forms of meaning, manifest either as a disorder of speech perception (Auditory Verbal Hallucinations, AVHs, abnormal speech production running without feedback control (Formal Thought Disorder, FTD, or production of abnormal linguistic content (Delusions. Our hypothesis makes testable predictions for the language profile of schizophrenia across symptoms; it simplifies the cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia while not being inconsistent with a pattern of neurocognitive deficits and their correlations with symptoms; and it predicts persistent findings on disturbances of language-related circuitry in the schizophrenic brain.

Left auditory cortex gamma synchronization and auditory hallucination symptoms in schizophrenia

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Shenton Martha E

2009-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Oscillatory electroencephalogram (EEG abnormalities may reflect neural circuit dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders. Previously we have found positive correlations between the phase synchronization of beta and gamma oscillations and hallucination symptoms in schizophrenia patients. These findings suggest that the propensity for hallucinations is associated with an increased tendency for neural circuits in sensory cortex to enter states of oscillatory synchrony. Here we tested this hypothesis by examining whether the 40 Hz auditory steady-state response (ASSR generated in the left primary auditory cortex is positively correlated with auditory hallucination symptoms in schizophrenia. We also examined whether the 40 Hz ASSR deficit in schizophrenia was associated with cross-frequency interactions. Sixteen healthy control subjects (HC and 18 chronic schizophrenia patients (SZ listened to 40 Hz binaural click trains. The EEG was recorded from 60 electrodes and average-referenced offline. A 5-dipole model was fit from the HC grand average ASSR, with 2 pairs of superior temporal dipoles and a deep midline dipole. Time-frequency decomposition was performed on the scalp EEG and source data. Results Phase locking factor (PLF and evoked power were reduced in SZ at fronto-central electrodes, replicating prior findings. PLF was reduced in SZ for non-homologous right and left hemisphere sources. Left hemisphere source PLF in SZ was positively correlated with auditory hallucination symptoms, and was modulated by delta phase. Furthermore, the correlations between source evoked power and PLF found in HC was reduced in SZ for the LH sources. Conclusion These findings suggest that differential neural circuit abnormalities may be present in the left and right auditory cortices in schizophrenia. In addition, they provide further support for the hypothesis that hallucinations are related to cortical hyperexcitability, which is manifested by

Hearing voices: does it give your patient a headache? A case of auditory hallucinations as acoustic aura in migraine

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Van der Feltz-Cornelis CM

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Christina M van der Feltz-Cornelis1–3, Henk Biemans1, Jan Timmer11Clinical Centre for Body, Mind and Health, GGz Breburg, Tilburg, The Netherlands; 2Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands; 3Trimbos Instituut, Utrecht, The NetherlandsObjective: Auditory hallucinations are generally considered to be a psychotic symptom. However, they do occur without other psychotic symptoms in a substantive number of cases in the general population and can cause a lot of individual distress because of the supposed association with schizophrenia. We describe a case of nonpsychotic auditory hallucinations occurring in the context of migraine.Method: Case report and literature review.Results: A 40-year-old man presented with imperative auditory hallucinations that caused depressive and anxiety symptoms. He reported migraine with visual aura as well which started at the same time as the auditory hallucinations. The auditory hallucinations occurred in the context of nocturnal migraine attacks, preceding them as aura. No psychotic disorder was present. After treatment of the migraine with propranolol 40 mg twice daily, explanation of the etiology of the hallucinations, and mirtazapine 45 mg daily, the migraine subsided and no further hallucinations occurred. The patient recovered.Discussion: Visual auras have been described in migraine and occur quite often. Auditory hallucinations as aura in migraine have been described in children without psychosis, but this is the first case describing auditory hallucinations without psychosis as aura in migraine in an adult. For description of this kind of hallucination, DSM-IV lacks an appropriate category.Conclusion: Psychiatrists should consider migraine with acoustic aura as a possible etiological factor in patients without further psychotic symptoms presenting with auditory hallucinations, and they should ask for headache symptoms when they take the history. Prognosis may be

The influence of hallucination proneness and social threat on time perception.

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Coy, Abbie L; Hutton, Samuel B

2013-01-01

Individuals with schizophrenia frequently report disturbances in time perception, but the precise nature of such deficits and their relation to specific symptoms of the disorder is unclear. We sought to determine the relationship between hallucination proneness and time perception in healthy individuals, and whether this relationship is moderated by hypervigilance to threat-related stimuli. 206 participants completed the Revised Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS-R) and a time reproduction task in which, on each trial, participants viewed a face (happy, angry, neutral, or fearful) for between 1 and 5 s and then reproduced the time period with a spacebar press. High LSHS-R scores were associated with longer time estimates, but only during exposure to angry faces. A factor analysis of LSHS-R scores identified a factor comprising items related to reality monitoring, and this factor was most associated with the longer time estimates. During exposure to potential threat in the environment, duration estimates increase with hallucination proneness. The experience of feeling exposed to threat for longer may serve to maintain a state of hypervigilance which has been shown previously to be associated with positive symptoms of schizophrenia.

Musical hallucinations : Review of treatment effects

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Coebergh, Jan A. F.; Lauw, R. F.; Bots, R.; Sommer, I. E. C.; Blom, J. D.

2015-01-01

Background: Despite an increased scientific interest in musical hallucinations over the past 25 years, treatment protocols are still lacking. This may well be due to the fact that musical hallucinations have multiple causes, and that published cases are relatively rare. Objective: To review the

Musical hallucinations : review of treatment effects

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Coebergh, Jan A F; Lauw, R F; Bots, R; Sommer, I E C; Blom, J D

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND: Despite an increased scientific interest in musical hallucinations over the past 25 years, treatment protocols are still lacking. This may well be due to the fact that musical hallucinations have multiple causes, and that published cases are relatively rare. OBJECTIVE: To review the

Food Thought Suppression: A Matched Comparison of Obese Individuals with and without Binge Eating Disorder

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Barnes, Rachel D.; Masheb, Robin M.; Grilo, Carlos M.

2011-01-01

Preliminary studies of non-clinical samples suggest that purposely attempting to avoid thoughts of food, referred to as food thought suppression, is related to a number of unwanted eating- and weight-related consequences, particularly in obese individuals. Despite possible implications for the treatment of obesity and eating disorders, little research has examined food thought suppression in obese individuals with binge eating disorder (BED). This study compared food thought suppression in 60...

Graph theory reveals dysconnected hubs in 22q11DS and altered nodal efficiency in patients with hallucinations

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Marie-Christine eOttet

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Schizophrenia is postulated to be the prototypical dysconnection disorder, in which hallucinations are the core symptom. Due to high heterogeneity in methodology across studies and the clinical phenotype, it remains unclear whether the structural brain dysconnection is global or focal and if clinical symptoms result from this dysconnection. In the present work, we attempt to clarify this issue by studying a population considered as a homogeneous genetic sub-type of schizophrenia, namely the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS. Cerebral MRIs were acquired for 46 patients and 48 age and gender matched controls (aged 6 to 26, respectively mean age = 15.20 ± 4.53 and 15.28 ± 4.35 years old. Using the Connectome mapper pipeline (connectomics.org that combines structural and diffusion MRI, we created a whole brain network for each individual. The graph theory was used to quantify the global and local properties in the brain network organization for each participant. A global degree loss of 6% was found in patients’ network along with an increased Characteristic Path Length. After identifying and comparing hubs, a significant loss of degree in patients’ hubs was found in 58% of them. Based on Allen’s brain network model for hallucinations, we explored the association between local efficiency and symptom severity. Negative correlations were found in the Broca’s area (p<0.004, the Wernicke area (p<0.023 and a positive correlation was found in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC (p<0.014. In line with the dysconnection findings in schizophrenia, our results provide preliminary evidence for a targeted alteration in the brain network hubs’organisation in individuals with a genetic risk for schizophrenia. The study of specific disorganization in language, speech and thought regulation networks sharing similar network properties may help to understand their role in the hallucination mechanism.

Association of adoptive child's thought disorders and schizophrenia spectrum disorders with their genetic liability for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, season of birth and parental Communication Deviance.

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Roisko, Riikka; Wahlberg, Karl-Erik; Hakko, Helinä; Tienari, Pekka

2015-04-30

Joint effects of genotype and the environment have turned out to be significant in the development of psychotic disorders. The purpose of the present study was to assess the association of an adoptive child׳s thought and schizophrenia spectrum disorders with genetic and environmental risk indicators and their interactions. A subgroup of the total sample used in the Finnish Adoptive Family Study was considered in the present study. The subjects were 125 adoptees at a high (n=53) or low (n=72) genetic risk of schizophrenia spectrum disorders and their adoptive parents. The risk factors evaluated were the adoptive child's genetic risk for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, winter or spring birth and parental Communication Deviance (CD). Thought disorders in the adoptees were assessed using the Thought Disorder Index and diagnoses were made according to DSM-III-R criteria. The adoptive child׳s Thought Disorder Index was only associated with parental Communication Deviance. The adoptive child's heightened genetic risk or winter or spring birth or parental CD or their interactions did not predict the adoptee's schizophrenia spectrum disorder. The results suggest that studies taking several risk indicators and their interactions into account may change views on the mutual significance of well-known risk factors. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Comparing the experience of voices in borderline personality disorder with the experience of voices in a psychotic disorder: A systematic review.

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Merrett, Zalie; Rossell, Susan L; Castle, David J

2016-07-01

In clinical settings, there is substantial evidence both clinically and empirically to suggest that approximately 50% of individuals with borderline personality disorder experience auditory verbal hallucinations. However, there is limited research investigating the phenomenology of these voices. The aim of this study was to review and compare our current understanding of auditory verbal hallucinations in borderline personality disorder with auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with a psychotic disorder, to critically analyse existing studies investigating auditory verbal hallucinations in borderline personality disorder and to identify gaps in current knowledge, which will help direct future research. The literature was searched using the electronic database Scopus, PubMed and MEDLINE. Relevant studies were included if they were written in English, were empirical studies specifically addressing auditory verbal hallucinations and borderline personality disorder, were peer reviewed, used only adult humans and sample comprising borderline personality disorder as the primary diagnosis, and included a comparison group with a primary psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia. Our search strategy revealed a total of 16 articles investigating the phenomenology of auditory verbal hallucinations in borderline personality disorder. Some studies provided evidence to suggest that the voice experiences in borderline personality disorder are similar to those experienced by people with schizophrenia, for example, occur inside the head, and often involved persecutory voices. Other studies revealed some differences between schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder voice experiences, with the borderline personality disorder voices sounding more derogatory and self-critical in nature and the voice-hearers' response to the voices were more emotionally resistive. Furthermore, in one study, the schizophrenia group's voices resulted in more disruption in daily functioning

Auditory Hallucinations in Acute Stroke

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Yair Lampl

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Auditory hallucinations are uncommon phenomena which can be directly caused by acute stroke, mostly described after lesions of the brain stem, very rarely reported after cortical strokes. The purpose of this study is to determine the frequency of this phenomenon. In a cross sectional study, 641 stroke patients were followed in the period between 1996–2000. Each patient underwent comprehensive investigation and follow-up. Four patients were found to have post cortical stroke auditory hallucinations. All of them occurred after an ischemic lesion of the right temporal lobe. After no more than four months, all patients were symptom-free and without therapy. The fact the auditory hallucinations may be of cortical origin must be taken into consideration in the treatment of stroke patients. The phenomenon may be completely reversible after a couple of months.

Explanation of obsessive-compulsive disorder and major depressive disorder on the basis of thought-action fusion.

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Ghamari Kivi, Hossein; Mohammadipour Rik, Ne'mat; Sadeghi Movahhed, Fariba

2013-01-01

Thought-action fusion (TAF) refers to the tendency to assume incorrect causal relationship between one's own thoughts and external reality, in which, thoughts and actions are treated as equivalents. This construct is present to development and maintenance of many psychological disorders. The aim of the present study was to predict obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and its types, and major depressive disorder (MDD) with TAF and its levels. Two groups, included 50 persons with OCD and MDD, respectively, were selected by convenience sampling method in private and governmental psychiatric centers in Ardabil, Iran. Then, they responded to Beck Depression Inventory, Padua Inventory and TAF scale. Data were analysed using multiple regressions analysis by stepwise method. TAF or its subtypes (moral TAF, likelihood-self TAF and likelihood-others TAF) can explain 14% of MDD variance (p < 0.01), 15% of OCD variance (p < 0.01), and 8-21% of OCD types variance (p < 0.05). Moral TAF had high levels in OCD and MDD. The construct of TAF is not specific factor for OCD, and it is present in MDD, too. None.

Hallucinations Experienced by Visually Impaired: Charles Bonnet Syndrome

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Pang, Linda

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT Charles Bonnet Syndrome is a condition where visual hallucinations occur as a result of damage along the visual pathway. Patients with Charles Bonnet Syndrome maintain partial or full insight that the hallucinations are not real, absence of psychological conditions, and absence of hallucinations affecting other sensory modalities, while maintaining intact intellectual functioning. Charles Bonnet Syndrome has been well documented in neurologic, geriatric medicine, and psychiatric lite...

Hallucinations and related concepts – their conceptual background

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Diogo eTelles-Correia

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Prior to the 17th century, the experiences we now name hallucinations or others alike were valued within a cultural context, they could bring meaning to the subject or the world. From mid-17th to 18th centuries, they acquire a medical quality in mental and organic illnesses. However, the term was only fully integrated in psychiatry by Esquirol in the 18th-19th centuries. By then, a controversy begins on whether hallucinations have a perceptual or intellectual origin. Esquirol favours the intellectual origin, describing them as an involuntary exercise of memory and imagination.By the twentieth century, some authors maintain that hallucinations are a form of delusion (Ey, while others describe them as a change in perception (Jaspers, Fish. A more integrated perspectives like those proposed by Alonso Fernandez and Luque, highlights the heterogeneity of hallucinations and the multiplicity of their types and causes.The terms pseudohallucination, illusion and hallucinosis are grafted into the concept of hallucination. Since its introduction the term pseudohallucination has been used with different meanings. The major characteristics that we found associated with pseudohallucinations were ‘lack of objectivity’ and ‘presence of insight’ (differing from hallucinations. Illusions are unanimously taken as distortions of real objects. Hallucinosis, first described in the context of alcohol consumption, is generally considered egodystonic, in which insight is preserved.These and other controversial aspects regarding the evolution of the term hallucination and all its derivative concepts are discussed in this paper.

Perseverative thought: a robust predictor of response to emotional challenge in generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.

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Ruscio, Ayelet Meron; Seitchik, Allison E; Gentes, Emily L; Jones, Jason D; Hallion, Lauren S

2011-12-01

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) frequently co-occur, yet the reasons for their comorbidity remain poorly understood. In the present experiment, we tested whether a tendency to engage in negative, repetitive thinking constitutes a common risk process for the two disorders. A mixed sample of adults with comorbid GAD-MDD (n=50), GAD only (n=35), MDD only (n=34), or no lifetime psychopathology (n=35) was administered noncontingent failure and success feedback on consecutive performance tasks. Perseverative thought (PT), measured by negative thought intrusions during a baseline period of focused breathing, emerged as a powerful prospective predictor of responses to this experimental challenge. Participants reporting more frequent negative thought intrusions at baseline, irrespective of thought content or diagnostic status, exhibited a stronger negative response to failure that persisted even after subsequent success. Higher PT over the course of the experiment was associated with later behavioral avoidance, with negative affect and other traits closely linked to anxiety and depression, and with the presence and severity of GAD and MDD. These findings provide evidence for a broadly-defined PT trait that is shared by GAD and MDD and contributes to adverse outcomes in these disorders. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transcranial direct current stimulation as a treatment for auditory hallucinations.

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Sanne eKoops

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Auditory hallucinations (AH are a symptom of several psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. In a significant minority of patients, AH are resistant to antipsychotic medication. Alternative treatment options for this medication-resistant group are scarce and most of them focus on coping with the hallucinations. Finding an alternative treatment that can diminish AH is of great importance.Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS is a safe and non-invasive technique that is able to directly influence cortical excitability through the application of very low electric currents. A 1-2 mA direct current is applied between two surface electrodes, one serving as the anode and the other as the cathode. Cortical excitability is increased in the vicinity of the anode and reduced near the cathode. The technique, which has only a few transient side effects and is cheap and portable, is increasingly explored as a treatment for neurological and psychiatric symptoms. It has shown efficacy on symptoms of depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and stroke. However, the application of tDCS as a treatment for AH is relatively new. This article provides an overview of the current knowledge in this field and provides guidelines for future research.

Food thought suppression: a matched comparison of obese individuals with and without binge eating disorder.

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Barnes, Rachel D; Masheb, Robin M; Grilo, Carlos M

2011-12-01

Preliminary studies of non-clinical samples suggest that purposely attempting to avoid thoughts of food, referred to as food thought suppression, is related to a number of unwanted eating- and weight-related consequences, particularly in obese individuals. Despite possible implications for the treatment of obesity and eating disorders, little research has examined food thought suppression in obese individuals with binge eating disorder (BED). This study compared food thought suppression in 60 obese patients with BED to an age-, gender-, and body mass index (BMI)-matched group of 59 obese persons who do not binge eat (NBO). In addition, this study examined the associations between food thought suppression and eating disorder psychopathology within the BED and NBO groups and separately by gender. Participants with BED and women endorsed the highest levels of food thought suppression. Food thought suppression was significantly and positively associated with many features of ED psychopathology in NBO women and with eating concerns in men with BED. Among women with BED, higher levels of food thought suppression were associated with higher frequency of binge eating, whereas among men with BED, higher levels of food thought suppression were associated with lower frequency of binge eating. Our findings suggest gender differences in the potential significance of food thought suppression in obese groups with and without co-existing binge eating problems. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Differences in clinical intrusive thoughts between obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and hypochondria.

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Romero-Sanchiz, Pablo; Nogueira-Arjona, Raquel; Godoy-Ávila, Antonio; Gavino-Lázaro, Aurora; Freeston, Mark H

2017-11-01

Differences and similarities between intrusive thoughts typical of obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and hypochondriasis are relevant for their differential diagnosis, formulation, and psychological treatment. Previous research in non-clinical samples pointed out the relevance of some process variables, such as responsibility, guilt, or neutralization strategies. This research is aimed to investigate the differences and similarities between clinical obsessions, worries, and illness intrusions in some of these process variables. A second aim is to identify models based on these variables that could reliably differentiate between them. Three groups of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (n = 35; 60% women, mean age 38.57), generalized anxiety disorder (n = 36; 61.1% women, mean age 41.50), and hypochondriasis (n = 34; 70.6% women, mean age 31.59) were evaluated using the Cognitive Intrusions Questionnaire-Transdiagnostic Version (Romero-Sanchiz, Nogueira-Arjona, Godoy-Ávila, Gavino-Lázaro, & Freeston, ). The results showed that some appraisals (e.g., responsibility or egodystonicity), emotions (e.g., guilt or insecurity), neutralization strategies, and other variables (e.g., verbal content or trigger from body sensation) are relevant for the discrimination between obsessions, worries, and illness intrusions. The results also showed 3 stable models based on these variables for the discrimination between these thoughts. The implication of these results in the diagnosis, formulation, and psychological treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and hypochondriasis is discussed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A questionnaire-based (UM-PDHQ study of hallucinations in Parkinson's disease

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Nation Daniel

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Hallucinations occur in 20–40% of PD patients and have been associated with unfavorable clinical outcomes (i.e., nursing home placement, increased mortality. Hallucinations, like other non-motor features of PD, are not well recognized in routine primary/secondary clinical practice. So far, there has been no instrument for uniform characterization of hallucinations in PD. To this end, we developed the University of Miami Parkinson's disease Hallucinations Questionnaire (UM-PDHQ that allows comprehensive assessment of hallucinations in clinical or research settings. Methods The UM-PDHQ is composed of 6 quantitative and 14 qualitative items. For our study PD patients of all ages and in all stages of the disease were recruited over an 18-month period. The UPDRS, MMSE, and Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories were used for comparisons. Results and Discussion Seventy consecutive PD patients were included in the analyses. Thirty-one (44.3% were classified as hallucinators and 39 as non-hallucinators. No significant group differences were observed in terms of demographics, disease characteristics, stage, education, depressive/anxiety scores or cognitive functioning (MMSE between hallucinators and non-hallucinators. Single mode hallucinations were reported in 20/31 (visual/14, auditory/4, olfactory/2 whereas multiple modalities were reported in 11/31 patients. The most common hallucinatory experience was a whole person followed by small animals, insects and reptiles. Conclusion Using the UM-PDHQ, we were able to define the key characteristics of hallucinations in PD in our cohort. Future directions include the validation of the quantitative part of the questionnaire than will serve as a rating scale for severity of hallucinations.

Clinical and neurocognitive aspects of hallucinations in Alzheimer's disease.

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El Haj, Mohamad; Roche, Jean; Jardri, Renaud; Kapogiannis, Dimitrios; Gallouj, Karim; Antoine, Pascal

2017-12-01

Due to their prevalence, hallucinations are considered as one of the most frequent psychotic symptoms in Alzheimer's disease (AD). These psychotic manifestations reduce patients' well-being, increase the burden of caregivers, contribute to early institutionalization, and are related with the course of cognitive decline in AD. Considering their consequences, we provide a comprehensive account of the current state of knowledge about the prevalence and characteristics of hallucinations in AD. We propose a comprehensive and testable theoretical model about hallucinations in AD: the ALZHA (ALZheimer and HAllucinations) model. In this model, neurological, genetic, cognitive, affective, and iatrogenic factors associated with hallucinations in AD are highlighted. According to the ALZHA model, hallucinations in AD first involve trait markers (i.e., cognitive deficits, neurological deficits, genetic predisposition and/or sensory deficits) to which state markers that may trigger these experiences are added (e.g., psychological distress and/or iatrogenic factors). Finally, we provide recommendations for assessment and management of these psychotic manifestations in AD, with the aim to benefit patients, caregivers, and health professionals. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Formal Thought Disorder and language impairment in schizophrenia

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Marcia Radanovic

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Schizophrenia is a psychiatric illness in which disorders of thought content are a prominent feature. The disruption of normal flow of thought, or “Formal Thought Disorder” (FTD, has been traditionally assessed through the content and form of patients’ speech, and speech abnormalities in schizophrenia were considered as a by-product of the disruption in conceptual structures and associative processes related to psychosis. This view has been changed due to increasing evidence that language per se is impaired in schizophrenia, especially its semantic, discursive, and pragmatic aspects. Schizophrenia is currently considered by some authors as a “language related human specific disease” or “logopathy”, and the neuroanatomical and genetic correlates of the language impairment in these patients are under investigation. Such efforts may lead to a better understanding about the pathophysiology of this devastating mental disease. We present some current concepts related to FTD as opposed to primary neurolinguistic abnormalities in schizophrenia.

Formal thought disorder in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

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Yalincetin, Berna; Bora, Emre; Binbay, Tolga; Ulas, Halis; Akdede, Berna Binnur; Alptekin, Koksal

2017-07-01

Historically, formal thought disorder has been considered as one of the distinctive symptoms of schizophrenia. However, research in last few decades suggested that there is a considerable clinical and neurobiological overlap between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BP). We conducted a meta-analysis of studies comparing positive (PTD) and negative formal thought disorder (NTD) in schizophrenia and BP. We included 19 studies comparing 715 schizophrenia and 474 BP patients. In the acute inpatient samples, there was no significant difference in the severity of PTD (d=-0.07, CI=-0.22-0.09) between schizophrenia and BP. In stable patients, schizophrenia was associated with increased PTD compared to BP (d=1.02, CI=0.35-1.70). NTD was significantly more severe (d=0.80, CI=0.52-0.1.08) in schizophrenia compared to BP. Our findings suggest that PTD is a shared feature of both schizophrenia and BP but persistent PTD or NTD can distinguish subgroups of schizophrenia from BP and schizophrenia patients with better clinical outcomes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Visual memory errors in Parkinson's disease patient with visual hallucinations.

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Barnes, J; Boubert, L

2011-03-01

The occurrences of visual hallucinations seem to be more prevalent in low light and hallucinators tend to be more prone to false positive type errors in memory tasks. Here we investigated whether the richness of stimuli does indeed affect recognition differently in hallucinating and nonhallucinating participants, and if so whether this difference extends to identifying spatial context. We compared 36 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with visual hallucinations, 32 Parkinson's patients without hallucinations, and 36 age-matched controls, on a visual memory task where color and black and white pictures were presented at different locations. Participants had to recognize the pictures among distracters along with the location of the stimulus. Findings revealed clear differences in performance between the groups. Both PD groups had impaired recognition compared to the controls, but those with hallucinations were significantly more impaired on black and white than on color stimuli. In addition, the group with hallucinations was significantly impaired compared to the other two groups on spatial memory. We suggest that not only do PD patients have poorer recognition of pictorial stimuli than controls, those who present with visual hallucinations appear to be more heavily reliant on bottom up sensory input and impaired on spatial ability.

Associations between nonauditory hallucinations, dissociation, and childhood adversity in first-episode psychosis.

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Longden, Eleanor; House, Allan O; Waterman, Mitch G

2016-01-01

Although repeated associations have been found between adversity exposure (particularly exposure to childhood sexual abuse), dissociation, and auditory hallucinations in the context of psychosis, there is little comparable research examining hallucinations in other modalities. This study aimed to determine whether cumulative adversity exposure influences the likelihood of experiencing visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory hallucinations among psychosis patients and whether measures of dissociation are significantly associated with nonauditory hallucinations when exposure to childhood adversity and psychological distress are adjusted for. Self-report measures and a retrospective case-control design were applied to assess nonauditory hallucinations, dissociation, psychological distress, and childhood adversity exposure in a sample of first-episode psychosis patients reporting nonauditory hallucinations (n = 36) and controls from the same clinical population without nonauditory hallucinations (n = 31). Case participants reported higher levels of dissociation, psychological distress, and exposure to childhood rape than the control group. Dissociation remained significantly associated with nonauditory hallucinations when we adjusted for childhood sexual abuse, other types of childhood adversity, and a combined measure of emotional distress. Indication of a dose-response relationship was detected, in that total number of adversities was significantly associated with reporting more than one modality of nonauditory hallucination. Observed associations between auditory hallucinations and dissociation in psychosis may extend to other hallucination modalities. It is suggested that more research attention be paid to the etiology and impact of nonauditory hallucinations in psychosis samples.

Comparison of automatical thoughts among generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder and generalized social phobia patients.

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Gül, A I; Simsek, G; Karaaslan, Ö; Inanir, S

2015-08-01

Automatic thoughts are measurable cognitive markers of the psychopathology and coping styles of individuals. This study measured and compared the automatic thoughts of patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and generalized social phobia (GSP). Fifty-two patients with GAD, 53 with MDD, and 50 with GSP and 52 healthy controls completed the validated Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ) and a structured psychiatric interview. Patients with GAD, MDD, and GSP also completed the validated Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) to determine the severity of their illnesses. All scales were completed before treatment and after diagnosis. The ATQ scores of all pairs of groups were compared. The ATQ scores of the GAD, MDD, and GSP groups were significantly higher than were those of the control group. We also found significant correlations among scores on the GAD-7, BDI, and LSAS. The mean age of patients with GSP was lower than was that of the other groups (30.90 ± 8.35). The significantly higher ATQ scores of the MDD, GAD, and GSP groups, compared with the control group, underscore the common cognitive psychopathology characterizing these three disorders. This finding confirms that similar cognitive therapy approaches should be effective for these patients. This study is the first to compare GAD, MDD, and GSP from a cognitive perspective.

Thought-Action Fusion and Inflated Responsibility Beliefs in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

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O'Leary, Emily Marie; Rucklidge, Julia Jane; Blampied, Neville

2009-01-01

In obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), inflated responsibility (IR) beliefs and thought-action fusion (TAF) are two cognitive schema argued to contribute to obsessions and compulsions. We investigated whether IR and TAF are OCD-specific or whether they occur in other anxiety disorders. Adults diagnosed with OCD (n = 20) or other anxiety disorders…

Faulty Suppression of Irrelevant Material in Patients with Thought Disorder Linked to Attenuated Frontotemporal Activation

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S. M. Arcuri

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Formal thought disorder is a feature schizophrenia that manifests as disorganized, incoherent speech, and is associated with a poor clinical outcome. The neurocognitive basis of this symptom is unclear but it is thought to involve an impairment in semantic processing classically described as a loosening of meaningful associations. Using a paradigm derived from the n400 event-related, potential, we examined the extent to which regional activation during semantic processing is altered in schizophrenic patients with formal thought disorder. Ten healthy control and 18 schizophrenic participants (9 with and 9 without formal thought disorder performed a semantic decision sentence task during an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment. We employed analysis of variance to estimate the main effects of semantic congruency and groups on activation and specific effects of formal thought disorder were addressed using post-hoc comparisons. We found that the frontotemporal network, normally engaged by a semantic decision task, was underactivated in schizophrenia, particularly in patients with FTD. This network is implicated in the inhibition of automatically primed stimuli and impairment of its function interferes with language processing and contributes to the production of incoherent speech.

Interaction of language, auditory and memory brain networks in auditory verbal hallucinations.

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Ćurčić-Blake, Branislava; Ford, Judith M; Hubl, Daniela; Orlov, Natasza D; Sommer, Iris E; Waters, Flavie; Allen, Paul; Jardri, Renaud; Woodruff, Peter W; David, Olivier; Mulert, Christoph; Woodward, Todd S; Aleman, André

2017-01-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) occur in psychotic disorders, but also as a symptom of other conditions and even in healthy people. Several current theories on the origin of AVH converge, with neuroimaging studies suggesting that the language, auditory and memory/limbic networks are of particular relevance. However, reconciliation of these theories with experimental evidence is missing. We review 50 studies investigating functional (EEG and fMRI) and anatomic (diffusion tensor imaging) connectivity in these networks, and explore the evidence supporting abnormal connectivity in these networks associated with AVH. We distinguish between functional connectivity during an actual hallucination experience (symptom capture) and functional connectivity during either the resting state or a task comparing individuals who hallucinate with those who do not (symptom association studies). Symptom capture studies clearly reveal a pattern of increased coupling among the auditory, language and striatal regions. Anatomical and symptom association functional studies suggest that the interhemispheric connectivity between posterior auditory regions may depend on the phase of illness, with increases in non-psychotic individuals and first episode patients and decreases in chronic patients. Leading hypotheses involving concepts as unstable memories, source monitoring, top-down attention, and hybrid models of hallucinations are supported in part by the published connectivity data, although several caveats and inconsistencies remain. Specifically, possible changes in fronto-temporal connectivity are still under debate. Precise hypotheses concerning the directionality of connections deduced from current theoretical approaches should be tested using experimental approaches that allow for discrimination of competing hypotheses. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Agrammatism in a case of formal thought disorder: Beyond intellectual decline and working memory deficit.

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Semkovska, Maria

2010-02-01

Previous studies have suggested that naming and syntactic deficits in formal thought disorder may be related to global cognitive decline. This article reports the case of a patient, FM, with formal thought disorder schizophrenia who presents disproportionate deficits in receptive and expressive grammar with respect to his intellectual level of functioning. Syntactic and morphologic components of expressive grammar appeared equally impaired. Deficits in language comprehension were observed independently from working memory limitations. FM showed preserved grammaticality judgment, but defective sentence comprehension where semantic context does not provide heuristics for assigning thematic roles, but syntactic knowledge is essential. These atypical results are discussed within a neurodevelopmental aetiological model of formal thought disorder.

Using Facebook to Reach People Who Experience Auditory Hallucinations.

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Crosier, Benjamin Sage; Brian, Rachel Marie; Ben-Zeev, Dror

2016-06-14

Auditory hallucinations (eg, hearing voices) are relatively common and underreported false sensory experiences that may produce distress and impairment. A large proportion of those who experience auditory hallucinations go unidentified and untreated. Traditional engagement methods oftentimes fall short in reaching the diverse population of people who experience auditory hallucinations. The objective of this proof-of-concept study was to examine the viability of leveraging Web-based social media as a method of engaging people who experience auditory hallucinations and to evaluate their attitudes toward using social media platforms as a resource for Web-based support and technology-based treatment. We used Facebook advertisements to recruit individuals who experience auditory hallucinations to complete an 18-item Web-based survey focused on issues related to auditory hallucinations and technology use in American adults. We systematically tested multiple elements of the advertisement and survey layout including image selection, survey pagination, question ordering, and advertising targeting strategy. Each element was evaluated sequentially and the most cost-effective strategy was implemented in the subsequent steps, eventually deriving an optimized approach. Three open-ended question responses were analyzed using conventional inductive content analysis. Coded responses were quantified into binary codes, and frequencies were then calculated. Recruitment netted N=264 total sample over a 6-week period. Ninety-seven participants fully completed all measures at a total cost of $8.14 per participant across testing phases. Systematic adjustments to advertisement design, survey layout, and targeting strategies improved data quality and cost efficiency. People were willing to provide information on what triggered their auditory hallucinations along with strategies they use to cope, as well as provide suggestions to others who experience auditory hallucinations. Women, people

Using Facebook to Reach People Who Experience Auditory Hallucinations

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Brian, Rachel Marie; Ben-Zeev, Dror

2016-01-01

Background Auditory hallucinations (eg, hearing voices) are relatively common and underreported false sensory experiences that may produce distress and impairment. A large proportion of those who experience auditory hallucinations go unidentified and untreated. Traditional engagement methods oftentimes fall short in reaching the diverse population of people who experience auditory hallucinations. Objective The objective of this proof-of-concept study was to examine the viability of leveraging Web-based social media as a method of engaging people who experience auditory hallucinations and to evaluate their attitudes toward using social media platforms as a resource for Web-based support and technology-based treatment. Methods We used Facebook advertisements to recruit individuals who experience auditory hallucinations to complete an 18-item Web-based survey focused on issues related to auditory hallucinations and technology use in American adults. We systematically tested multiple elements of the advertisement and survey layout including image selection, survey pagination, question ordering, and advertising targeting strategy. Each element was evaluated sequentially and the most cost-effective strategy was implemented in the subsequent steps, eventually deriving an optimized approach. Three open-ended question responses were analyzed using conventional inductive content analysis. Coded responses were quantified into binary codes, and frequencies were then calculated. Results Recruitment netted N=264 total sample over a 6-week period. Ninety-seven participants fully completed all measures at a total cost of $8.14 per participant across testing phases. Systematic adjustments to advertisement design, survey layout, and targeting strategies improved data quality and cost efficiency. People were willing to provide information on what triggered their auditory hallucinations along with strategies they use to cope, as well as provide suggestions to others who experience

Differences in the symptom profile of methamphetamine-related psychosis and primary psychotic disorders.

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McKetin, Rebecca; Baker, Amanda L; Dawe, Sharon; Voce, Alexandra; Lubman, Dan I

2017-05-01

We examined the lifetime experience of hallucinations and delusions associated with transient methamphetamine-related psychosis (MAP), persistent MAP and primary psychosis among a cohort of dependent methamphetamine users. Participants were classified as having (a) no current psychotic symptoms, (n=110); (b) psychotic symptoms only when using methamphetamine (transient MAP, n=85); (c) psychotic symptoms both when using methamphetamine and when abstaining from methamphetamine (persistent MAP, n=37), or (d) meeting DSM-IV criteria for lifetime schizophrenia or mania (primary psychosis, n=52). Current psychotic symptoms were classified as a score of 4 or more on any of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale items of suspiciousness, hallucinations or unusual thought content in the past month. Lifetime psychotic diagnoses and symptoms were assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Transient MAP was associated with persecutory delusions and tactile hallucinations (compared to the no symptom group). Persistent MAP was additionally associated with delusions of reference, thought interference and complex auditory, visual, olfactory and tactile hallucinations, while primary psychosis was also associated with delusions of thought projection, erotomania and passivity. The presence of non-persecutory delusions and hallucinations across various modalities is a marker for persistent MAP or primary psychosis in people who use methamphetamine. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Using Facebook to Reach People Who Experience Auditory Hallucinations

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Crosier, Benjamin Sage; Brian, Rachel Marie; Ben-Zeev, Dror

2016-01-01

Background Auditory hallucinations (eg, hearing voices) are relatively common and underreported false sensory experiences that may produce distress and impairment. A large proportion of those who experience auditory hallucinations go unidentified and untreated. Traditional engagement methods oftentimes fall short in reaching the diverse population of people who experience auditory hallucinations. Objective The objective of this proof-of-concept study was to examine the viability of leveraging...

Auditory hallucinations in adults with hearing impairment: a large prevalence study.

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Linszen, M M J; van Zanten, G A; Teunisse, R J; Brouwer, R M; Scheltens, P; Sommer, I E

2018-03-20

Similar to visual hallucinations in visually impaired patients, auditory hallucinations are often suggested to occur in adults with hearing impairment. However, research on this association is limited. This observational, cross-sectional study tested whether auditory hallucinations are associated with hearing impairment, by assessing their prevalence in an adult population with various degrees of objectified hearing impairment. Hallucination presence was determined in 1007 subjects aged 18-92, who were referred for audiometric testing to the Department of ENT-Audiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. The presence and severity of hearing impairment were calculated using mean air conduction thresholds from the most recent pure tone audiometry. Out of 829 participants with hearing impairment, 16.2% (n = 134) had experienced auditory hallucinations in the past 4 weeks; significantly more than the non-impaired group [5.8%; n = 10/173; p impairment, with rates up to 24% in the most profoundly impaired group (p impairment in the best ear. Auditory hallucinations mostly consisted of voices (51%), music (36%), and doorbells or telephones (24%). Our findings reveal that auditory hallucinations are common among patients with hearing impairment, and increase with impairment severity. Although more research on potential confounding factors is necessary, clinicians should be aware of this phenomenon, by inquiring after hallucinations in hearing-impaired patients and, conversely, assessing hearing impairment in patients with auditory hallucinations, since it may be a treatable factor.

SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH CHRONIC TIC DISORDERS.

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Storch, Eric A; Hanks, Camille E; Mink, Jonathan W; McGuire, Joseph F; Adams, Heather R; Augustine, Erika F; Vierhile, Amy; Thatcher, Alyssa; Bitsko, Rebecca; Lewin, Adam B; Murphy, Tanya K

2015-10-01

Despite evidence of elevated risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behavior in youth with Tourette syndrome and chronic tic disorders (CTD), few studies have actually examined that relationship. This study documented the frequency and clinical correlates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in a sample of children and adolescents with CTD (N = 196, range 6-18 years old). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control. Youth and parents completed a battery of measures that assessed co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses, child emotional and behavioral symptoms, and impairment due to tics or co-occurring conditions. A structured diagnostic interview identified that 19 youths with CTD (9.7%) experienced suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors, which was elevated compared to 3 youths (3%) who experienced these thoughts in a community control sample (N = 100, range 6-18 years old, P = .03). For youth with CTD, suicidal thoughts and behaviors were frequently endorsed in the context of anger and frustration. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) anxious/depressed, withdrawn, social problems, thought problems, and aggressive behavior subscales, as well as the total internalizing problems scale, were associated with the presence of suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors. Suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors were significantly associated with tic symptom severity; tic-related impairment; and obsessive-compulsive, depressive, anxiety, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders' symptom severity. CBCL anxiety/depression scores mediated the relationship between tic severity and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Findings suggest that about 1 in 10 youth with CTD experience suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors, which are associated with a more complex clinical presentation and often occur in the presence of anger and frustration. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Neuropsychiatry of complex visual hallucinations.

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Mocellin, Ramon; Walterfang, Mark; Velakoulis, Dennis

2006-09-01

To describe the phenomenology and pathophysiology of complex visual hallucinations (CVH) in various organic states, in particular Charles Bonnet syndrome and peduncular hallucinosis. Three cases of CVH in the setting of pontine infarction, thalamic infarction and temporoparietal epileptiform activity are presented and the available psychiatric, neurological and biological literature on the structures of the central nervous system involved in producing hallucinatory states is reviewed. Complex visual hallucinations can arise from a variety of processes involving the retinogeniculocalcarine tract, or ascending brainstem modulatory structures. The cortical activity responsible for hallucinations results from altered or reduced input into these regions, or a loss of ascending inhibition of their afferent pathways. A significant degree of overlaps exists between the concepts of Charles Bonnet syndrome and peduncular hallucinosis. The fluidity of these eponymous syndromes reduces their validity and meaning, and may result in an inappropriate attribution of the underlying pathology. An understanding of how differing pathologies may produce CVH allows for the appropriate tailoring of treatment, depending on the site and nature of the lesion and content of perceptual disturbance.

Metoprolol-induced visual hallucinations: a case series

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Goldner Jonathan A

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction Metoprolol is a widely used beta-adrenergic blocker that is commonly prescribed for a variety of cardiovascular syndromes and conditions. While central nervous system adverse effects have been well-described with most beta-blockers (especially lipophilic agents such as propranolol, visual hallucinations have been only rarely described with metoprolol. Case presentations Case 1 was an 84-year-old Caucasian woman with a history of hypertension and osteoarthritis, who suffered from visual hallucinations which she described as people in her bedroom at night. They would be standing in front of the bed or sitting on chairs watching her when she slept. Numerous medications were stopped before her physician realized the metoprolol was the causative agent. The hallucinations resolved only after discontinuation of this medication. Case 2 was a 62-year-old Caucasian man with an inferior wall myocardial infarction complicated by cardiac arrest, who was successfully resuscitated and discharged from the hospital on metoprolol. About 18 months after discharge, he related to his physician that he had been seeing dead people at night. He related his belief that since he 'had died and was brought back to life', he was now seeing people from the after-life. Upon discontinuation of the metoprolol the visual disturbances resolved within several days. Case 3 was a 68 year-old Caucasian woman with a history of severe hypertension and depression, who reported visual hallucinations at night for years while taking metoprolol. These included awakening during the night with people in her bedroom and seeing objects in her room turn into animals. After a new physician switched her from metoprolol to atenolol, the visual hallucinations ceased within four days. Conclusion We suspect that metoprolol-induced visual hallucinations may be under-recognized and under-reported. Patients may frequently fail to acknowledge this adverse effect believing that they

Intrusive thoughts in obsessive-compulsive disorder and eating disorder patients: a differential analysis.

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García-Soriano, Gemma; Roncero, Maria; Perpiñá, Conxa; Belloch, Amparo

2014-05-01

The present study aims to compare the unwanted intrusions experienced by obsessive-compulsive (OCD) and eating disorder (ED) patients, their appraisals, and their control strategies and analyse which variables predict the intrusions' disruption and emotional disturbance in each group. Seventy-nine OCD and 177 ED patients completed two equivalent self-reports designed to assess OCD-related and ED-related intrusions, their dysfunctional appraisals, and associated control strategies. OCD and ED patients experienced intrusions with comparable frequency and emotional disturbance, but OCD patients experienced greater disruption. Differences appeared between groups on some appraisals and control strategies. Intolerance to uncertainty (OCD group) and thought importance (ED group) predicted their respective emotional disturbance and disruption. Additionally, control importance (OCD group) and thought-action fusion moral (OCD and ED groups) predicted their emotional disturbance. OCD and ED share the presence of intrusions; however, different variables explain why they are disruptive and emotionally disturbing. Cognitive intrusions require further investigation as a transdiagnostic variable. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

Different cerebral metabolic features in dementia with lewy bodies with/without visual hallucination

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Bom Sahn; Kim, Yu Kyeong; Yang, Young Soon; Park, Eun Kyung; Cho, Sang Soo; Kim, Sang Yun; Kim, Sang Eun

2007-01-01

Reduction of glucose metabolism in the occipital cortex is well known in dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB). The aim of this study was to evaluate the different nature of FDG PET in DLB patients who had visual hallucination or not. Thirteen patients (729 yrs, m:f=6:7) with DLB participated. DLB patient were classified into two groups according to the presence of visual hallucination; seven DLB patients with visual hallucination and 6 patients without visual hallucination. No differences between patient with and without visual hallucination was found in their cognitive function measured by mini mental status exam (MMSE) and clinical dementia rating (CDR) scale. Age and gender matched 30 healthy subjects (age; 715 yrs, m: f = 13:17) served as controls for comparison purpose. Regional metabolic differences on FDG PET among the groups were tested using SPM. In DLB patients groups regardless of visual hallucination, significant regional hypometabolism were observed in the bilateral occipital cortices as well as bilateral parietotemporal and frontal association cortices when compared with healthy controls, as expected. In DLB patients with visual hallucination compared to patients without hallucination, regional hypometabolism over primary and secondary visual cortex (BA17, BA18) was more significant. Moreover, lower regional metabolism in the paracentral area (BA 6) and cerebellar vermis was also observed in DLB with visual hallucination than without hallucination. Profound hypometabolism in the visual cortex may be a feature in DLB patients with visual hallucination. Also, relative hypometabolism in the paracentral area and cerebellum could be neurobiological characteristics related with abnormal cognitive and motor process response to hallucination

What Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic–Hypnopompic Experiences?

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Waters, Flavie; Blom, Jan Dirk; Dang-Vu, Thien Thanh; Cheyne, Allan J.; Alderson-Day, Ben; Woodruff, Peter; Collerton, Daniel

2016-01-01

By definition, hallucinations occur only in the full waking state. Yet similarities to sleep-related experiences such as hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, dreams and parasomnias, have been noted since antiquity. These observations have prompted researchers to suggest a common aetiology for these phenomena based on the neurobiology of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. With our recent understanding of hallucinations in different population groups and at the neurobiological, cognitive and interpersonal levels, it is now possible to draw comparisons between the 2 sets of experiences as never before. In the current article, we make detailed comparisons between sleep-related experiences and hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and eye disease, at the levels of phenomenology (content, sensory modalities involved, perceptual attributes) and of brain function (brain activations, resting-state networks, neurotransmitter action). Findings show that sleep-related experiences share considerable overlap with hallucinations at the level of subjective descriptions and underlying brain mechanisms. Key differences remain however: (1) Sleep-related perceptions are immersive and largely cut off from reality, whereas hallucinations are discrete and overlaid on veridical perceptions; and (2) Sleep-related perceptions involve only a subset of neural networks implicated in hallucinations, reflecting perceptual signals processed in a functionally and cognitively closed-loop circuit. In summary, both phenomena are non-veridical perceptions that share some phenomenological and neural similarities, but insufficient evidence exists to fully support the notion that the majority of hallucinations depend on REM processes or REM intrusions into waking consciousness. PMID:27358492

Verbal working memory deficits predict levels of auditory hallucination in first-episode psychosis.

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Gisselgård, Jens; Anda, Liss Gøril; Brønnick, Kolbjørn; Langeveld, Johannes; Ten Velden Hegelstad, Wenche; Joa, Inge; Johannessen, Jan Olav; Larsen, Tor Ketil

2014-03-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations are a characteristic symptom in schizophrenia. Recent causal models of auditory verbal hallucinations propose that cognitive mechanisms involving verbal working memory are involved in the genesis of auditory verbal hallucinations. Thus, in the present study, we investigate the hypothesis that verbal working memory is a specific factor behind auditory verbal hallucinations. In the present study, we investigated the association between verbal working memory manipulation (Backward Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing) and auditory verbal hallucinations in a population study (N=52) of first episode psychosis. The degree of auditory verbal hallucination as reported in the P3-subscale of the PANSS interview was included as dependent variable using sequential multiple regression, while controlling for age, psychosis symptom severity, executive cognitive functions and simple auditory working memory span. Multiple sequential regression analyses revealed verbal working memory manipulation to be the only significant predictor of verbal hallucination severity. Consistent with cognitive data from auditory verbal hallucinations in healthy individuals, the present results suggest a specific association between auditory verbal hallucinations, and cognitive processes involving the manipulation of phonological representations during a verbal working memory task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Eye-related visual hallucinations: Consider ′Charles Bonnet syndrome′

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Nilgun Cinar

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS is typically characterized by visual hallucinations in elderly people without cognitive defects. This article presents the case of an 80-year-old male patient with a one-year history of visual hallucinations, secondary to glaucoma, in both eyes. Neither a dopamine agonist nor cholinesterase inhibitor therapy improved his symptoms. In this case, the hallucinations were gradually improved after administration of a GABAergic drug, pregabalin, for diabetic polyneuropathy. Placebo-controlled clinical trials would be needed to support this effect of pregabalin, as suggested by this association.

The prevalence and correlates of hallucinations in a general ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Multivariate analyses revealed a significant association between role impairment, service utilisation, suicidality and reported auditory or visual hallucinations. No significant association was found between urbanicity and reported psychotic symptoms. Conclusion: Our finding that psychotic symptoms (ie hallucinations) are ...

[Complex visual hallucinations following occipital infarct and perception of optical illusions].

Science.gov (United States)

Renou, P; Deltour, S; Samson, Y

2008-05-01

The physiopathology of visual hallucinations in the hemianopic field secondary to occipital infarct is uncertain. We report the case of a patient with a history of occipital infarct who presented nonstereotyped complex hallucinations in the quadranopic field resulting from a second controlateral occipital infarct. Based on an experience with motion optical illusions, we suggested that the association of these two occipital lesions, involving the V5 motion area on the one side and the V1 area on the other side, could have produced the complex hallucinations due to a release phenomenon. The patient experienced simultaneously a double visual consciousness, with both hallucinations and real visual perceptions. The study of perceptual illusions in patients with visual hallucinations could illustrate the innovative theory of visual consciousness as being not unified but constituted of multiple microconsciousnesses.

The Study of Frequency Self Care Strategies against Auditory Hallucinations

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Mahin Nadem

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Background: In schizophrenic clients, self-care strategies against auditory hallucinations can decrease disturbances results in hallucination. This study was aimed to assess frequency of self-care strategies against auditory hallucinations in paranoid schizophrenic patients, hospitalized in Shafa Hospital.Materials and Method: This was a descriptive study on 201 patients with paranoid schizophrenia hospitalized in psychiatry unit with convenience sampling in Rasht. The gathered data consists of two parts, first unit demographic characteristic and the second part, self- report questionnaire include 38 items about self-care strategies.Results: There were statistically significant relationship between demographic variables and knowledg effect and self-care strategies against auditory hallucinaions. Sex with phisical domain p0.07, marriage status with cognitive domain (p>0.07 and life status with behavioural domain (p>0.01. 53.2% of reported type of our auditory hallucinations were command hallucinations, furtheremore the most effective self-care strategies against auditory hallucinations were from physical domain and substance abuse (82.1% was the most effective strategies in this domain.Conclusion: The client with paranoid schizophrenia used more than physical domain strategies against auditory hallucinaions and this result highlight need those to approprait nursing intervention. Instruction and leading about selection the effective self-care strategies against auditory ha

Action simulation in hallucination-prone adolescents

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Tarik eDahoun

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Theoretical and empirical accounts suggest that impairments in self-other discrimination processes are likely to promote the expression of hallucinations. However, our understanding of such processes during adolescence is still at an early stage. The present study thus aims 1 to delineate the neural correlates sustaining mental simulation of actions involving self-performed actions (first-person perspective; 1PP and other-performed actions (third-person perspective; 3PP during adolescence 2 to identify atypical activation patterns during 1PP/3PP mental simulation of actions in hallucination-prone adolescents 3 to examine whether differential risk for schizophrenia (clinical vs genetic is also associated with differential impairments in the 1PP/3PP mental simulation of actions during adolescence. Twenty-two typically developing controls (Control group; 6 females, twelve hallucination-prone adolescents (AH group; 7 females and thirteen adolescents with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11.2DS group; 4 females were included in the study. During the fMRI task, subjects were presented with a cue (self-other priming cues indicating to perform the task using either a first person perspective (you-1PP or a third person perspective (friend-3PP and then they were asked to mentally simulate actions based on the type of cue. Our results indicated that atypical patterns of cerebral activation, particularly in the key areas of self-other distinction, were found in both groups at risk for auditory hallucinations (AH and 22q11.2DS. More precisely, adolescents in the AH and 22q11.2DS groups presented decreased activations in the parieto-occipital region BA19 during 3PP. This study characterizes the neural correlates of mental imagery for actions during adolescence, and suggests that a differential risk for hallucination-proneness (clinical vs. genetic is associated to similar patterns of atypical activations in key areas sustaining self-other discrimination

Visual Hallucinations in PD and Lewy Body Dementias: Old and New Hypotheses

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M. Onofrj

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Visual Hallucinations (VH are a common non-motor symptom of Parkinson’s Disease (PD and the Lewy body dementias (LBD of Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD and Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB. The origin of VH in PD and LBD is debated: earlier studies considered a number of different possible mechanisms underlying VH including visual disorders, Rapid Eye Movement (REM Sleep Intrusions, dysfunctions of top down or bottom up visual pathways, and neurotransmitter imbalance.

Online Methods of Managing Auditory Hallucinations: A New Trend to Understand Psychopathology.

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Sharma, Manoj Kumar; Mahindru, Poornima

2017-01-01

Treatment seekers use various coping methods to reduce the distress associated with auditory hallucinations. With the increase use of technology, the technology means are also in use to manage the auditory hallucination. The current report documents the implications of technology means for the management of auditory hallucinations. The user was assessed using clinical interview, internet addiction test, problematic online gaming questionnaire, and screening questions for technology addiction. It showed the use of technology to manage the auditory hallucinations. Psychotherapy work revealed a reduction in their use of technology means at follow-up. It implies to evolve the therapeutic use of technology means and development of alternative therapeutic means to manage the auditory hallucinations.

Toxic cannabis psychosis IS a valid entIty

African Journals Online (AJOL)

1990-10-20

Oct 20, 1990 ... Psychotic features included: formal thought disorder; hallucinations; delusions; ..... Major depressive episode. Manic episode ... Anxiety disorder. Temporal ... admission to hospital were in fact suffering from a mixed dagga and ...

Visual hallucinations associated with varenicline: a case report

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Raidoo B Mahendri

2009-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction Varenicline is widely used for smoking cessation. It has shown efficacy over placebo and bupropion in manufacturer-sponsored trials. Those with mental illness were excluded from these trials. There are case reports of exacerbation of mental illness and development of psychiatric symptoms with varenicline use. Case presentation A 61-year-old male Caucasian being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression not otherwise specified and alcohol dependence, was prescribed varenicline while he was in a post-traumatic stress disorder/alcohol dual diagnosis treatment program. He developed visual hallucinations, which became worse with titration of the medication. These symptoms resolved upon discontinuation of varenicline. Conclusion Patients with mental illness have a higher incidence of nicotine dependence, and attempts should be made for smoking cessation. Varenicline has not been widely tested in this population. There are reports of exacerbation of mental illness, and probable causation of psychiatric symptoms in the mentally ill. Providers should be aware of this possibility and advise their patients appropriately.

What Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic-Hypnopompic Experiences?

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Waters, Flavie; Blom, Jan Dirk; Dang-Vu, Thien Thanh; Cheyne, Allan J; Alderson-Day, Ben; Woodruff, Peter; Collerton, Daniel

2016-09-01

By definition, hallucinations occur only in the full waking state. Yet similarities to sleep-related experiences such as hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, dreams and parasomnias, have been noted since antiquity. These observations have prompted researchers to suggest a common aetiology for these phenomena based on the neurobiology of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. With our recent understanding of hallucinations in different population groups and at the neurobiological, cognitive and interpersonal levels, it is now possible to draw comparisons between the 2 sets of experiences as never before. In the current article, we make detailed comparisons between sleep-related experiences and hallucinations in Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and eye disease, at the levels of phenomenology (content, sensory modalities involved, perceptual attributes) and of brain function (brain activations, resting-state networks, neurotransmitter action). Findings show that sleep-related experiences share considerable overlap with hallucinations at the level of subjective descriptions and underlying brain mechanisms. Key differences remain however: (1) Sleep-related perceptions are immersive and largely cut off from reality, whereas hallucinations are discrete and overlaid on veridical perceptions; and (2) Sleep-related perceptions involve only a subset of neural networks implicated in hallucinations, reflecting perceptual signals processed in a functionally and cognitively closed-loop circuit. In summary, both phenomena are non-veridical perceptions that share some phenomenological and neural similarities, but insufficient evidence exists to fully support the notion that the majority of hallucinations depend on REM processes or REM intrusions into waking consciousness. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Oscillatory Cortical Network Involved in Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Schizophrenia

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van Lutterveld, R.; Hillebrand, A.; Diederen, K.M.J.; Daalman, K.; Kahn, R.S.; Stam, C.J.; Sommer, I.E.C.

2012-01-01

Background: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), a prominent symptom of schizophrenia, are often highly distressing for patients. Better understanding of the pathogenesis of hallucinations could increase therapeutic options. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) provides direct measures of neuronal activity

Dementia, Clinical Aspects

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Docu Any Axelerad

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Disordered arousal leads to a confusional state with an incoherent line of thought, temporal disorientation, poor recall, visual illusions, hallucinations and disordered behavior. With the exception of dementia with Lewy bodies, which is characterized by fluctuating confusion, other disorders causing dementia persist and deteriorate over months or years, and are not characterized by fluctuations or confusional episodes, except when other medical or environmental perturbations disrupt the arousal systems of the brain (e.g. intercurrent infection, anoxia. Sometimes, their hallucinations are different, with a religious tendency, and maybe we must insist with anamnesis related to previous religious beliefs, to see if it is possible to correlate some damaged area than cause hallucinations, are reliable with our faith.

Auditory verbal hallucinations predominantly activate the right inferior frontal area

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sommer, Iris E. C.; Diederen, Kelly M. J.; Blom, Jan-Dirk; Willems, Anne; Kushan, Leila; Slotema, Karin; Boks, Marco P. M.; Daalman, Kirstin; Hoek, Hans W.; Neggers, Sebastiaan F. W.; Kahn, Rene S.

2008-01-01

The pathophysiology of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) is largely unknown. Several functional imaging studies have measured cerebral activation during these hallucinations, but sample sizes were relatively small (one to eight subjects) and findings inconsistent. In this study cerebral

Nasal cycle dominance and hallucinations in an adult schizophrenic female.

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Shannahoff-Khalsa, David; Golshan, Shahrokh

2015-03-30

Nasal dominance, at the onset of hallucinations, was studied as a marker of both the lateralized ultradian rhythm of the autonomic nervous system and the tightly coupled ultradian rhythm of alternating cerebral hemispheric dominance in a single case study of a schizophrenic female. Over 1086 days, 145 hallucination episodes occurred with left nostril dominance significantly greater than the right nostril dominant phase of the nasal cycle. A right nostril breathing exercise, that primarily stimulates the left hemisphere, reduces symptoms more quickly for hallucinations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thought disorder in schizophrenia: impairment in contextual processing via integrative failures in cognition.

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Patniyot, Nicholas S

2011-10-01

Formal thought disorder is a critical dysfunction in schizophrenia whose cause remains uncertain, but whose explanation may greatly further our understanding of the disease. Thought disorder in patients with schizophrenia has been hypothesized to involve a disturbance in the internal representation of context. Positive symptoms of schizophrenia attributable to thought disorder display a lack of organization that may be accounted for by an absence of normal contextual processing occurring within the operations of the executive system. But the precise nature and pervasiveness of the deficient cognitive operation remain undistinguished. It is proposed here that the assimilatory functions of the brain appear to lack the ability to perform a particular type of integrative operation when presented with heterogeneous information. This deficit involves committing cognitive misattributions through a confusion of mental terms via a process in thought analogous to a linguistic failure to correctly interpret deictic referents. Both proposed deficits in mental deixis and analogous "metarepresentational" deficits in schizophrenia potentially involve a failure to draw information for a conclusion from a separate framework of relations in integrative fashion. These deficits appear to involve a failure to take an interpreted piece of information as an output from a particular mental task and incorporate it into a new operational scheme, and a central attribute to the deficit is that there is a loss of an effective or adequate integration of separate strata of information. Potential neurobiological correlates to such a system based on current knowledge about schizophrenia neurocircuitry, as well as implications for testing, are also discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Face Hallucination with Linear Regression Model in Semi-Orthogonal Multilinear PCA Method

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Asavaskulkiet, Krissada

2018-04-01

In this paper, we propose a new face hallucination technique, face images reconstruction in HSV color space with a semi-orthogonal multilinear principal component analysis method. This novel hallucination technique can perform directly from tensors via tensor-to-vector projection by imposing the orthogonality constraint in only one mode. In our experiments, we use facial images from FERET database to test our hallucination approach which is demonstrated by extensive experiments with high-quality hallucinated color faces. The experimental results assure clearly demonstrated that we can generate photorealistic color face images by using the SO-MPCA subspace with a linear regression model.

Semantics, pragmatics, and formal thought disorders in people with schizophrenia.

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Salavera, Carlos; Puyuelo, Miguel; Antoñanzas, José L; Teruel, Pilar

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to analyze how formal thought disorders (FTD) affect semantics and pragmatics in patients with schizophrenia. The sample comprised subjects with schizophrenia (n = 102) who met the criteria for the disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition Text Revision. In the research process, the following scales were used: Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) for psychopathology measurements; the Scale for the Assessment of Thought, Language, and Communication (TLC) for FTD, Word Accentuation Test (WAT), System for the Behavioral Evaluation of Social Skills (SECHS), the pragmatics section of the Objective Criteria Language Battery (BLOC-SR) and the verbal sections of the Wechsler Adults Intelligence Scale (WAIS) III, for assessment of semantics and pragmatics. The results in the semantics and pragmatics sections were inferior to the average values obtained in the general population. Our data demonstrated that the more serious the FTD, the worse the performances in the Verbal-WAIS tests (particularly in its vocabulary, similarities, and comprehension sections), SECHS, and BLOC-SR, indicating that FTD affects semantics and pragmatics, although the results of the WAT indicated good premorbid language skills. The principal conclusion we can draw from this study is the evidence that in schizophrenia the superior level of language structure seems to be compromised, and that this level is related to semantics and pragmatics; when there is an alteration in this level, symptoms of FTD appear, with a wide-ranging relationship between both language and FTD. The second conclusion is that the subject's language is affected by the disorder and rules out the possibility of a previous verbal impairment.

Neuropsychopharmacology of auditory hallucinations: insights from pharmacological functional MRI and perspectives for future research.

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Johnsen, Erik; Hugdahl, Kenneth; Fusar-Poli, Paolo; Kroken, Rune A; Kompus, Kristiina

2013-01-01

Experiencing auditory verbal hallucinations is a prominent symptom in schizophrenia that also occurs in subjects at enhanced risk for psychosis and in the general population. Drug treatment of auditory hallucinations is challenging, because the current understanding is limited with respect to the neural mechanisms involved, as well as how CNS drugs, such as antipsychotics, influence the subjective experience and neurophysiology of hallucinations. In this article, the authors review studies of the effect of antipsychotic medication on brain activation as measured with functional MRI in patients with auditory verbal hallucinations. First, the authors examine the neural correlates of ongoing auditory hallucinations. Then, the authors critically discuss studies addressing the antipsychotic effect on the neural correlates of complex cognitive tasks. Current evidence suggests that blood oxygen level-dependant effects of antipsychotic drugs reflect specific, regional effects but studies on the neuropharmacology of auditory hallucinations are scarce. Future directions for pharmacological neuroimaging of auditory hallucinations are discussed.

Role of thought-related beliefs and coping strategies in the escalation of intrusive thoughts: an analog to obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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Marcks, Brook A; Woods, Douglas W

2007-11-01

Cognitive-behavioral models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) assume that obsessions have their origin in normal intrusive thoughts. These models propose that certain beliefs, such as thought-action fusion (TAF) beliefs, combined with the use of ineffective coping strategies, such as thought suppression, lead to the development of OCD. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between these variables in a non-clinical sample in addition to exploring the effects of an alternative, acceptance-based coping strategy. This study explored the relationship between TAF beliefs, thought suppression, and OC-consistent symptoms via mediational analyses. Results showed that thought suppression mediated the relationship between TAF beliefs and OC-consistent symptoms. This study also experimentally examined the effects of various coping strategies (suppression, acceptance, or monitor-only) on the frequency of a distressing intrusion and appraisal ratings (e.g., anxiety, guilt, responsibility) after a TAF induction. Spontaneous suppression in the monitor-only group made comparisons of the experimental data difficult. However, analyses provided preliminary evidence suggesting that thought suppression is related to more intrusions, higher levels of anxiety, and negative appraisals, whereas an acceptance-based approach may be a useful alternative. Additional findings, limitations of the current study, and directions for future research are discussed.

Three Cases with Visual Hallucinations following Combined Ocular and Occipital Damage

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Bogusław Paradowski

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Charles Bonnet syndrome is an underrecognized disease that involves visual hallucinations in visually impaired patients. We present the cases of three patients who experienced complex visual hallucinations following various pathomechanisms. In two cases, diagnosis showed coexistence of occipital lobe damage with ocular damage, while in the third case it showed occipital lobe damage with retrobulbar optic neuritis. Theories of pathogenesis and the neuroanatomical basis of complex visual hallucinations are discussed and supported by literature review.

The Role of Thought Suppression, Meta-Cognitive Factors and Negative Emotions in Prediction of Substance Dependency Disorder

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Omid Saed

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Introduction: This study investigated the role of thought suppression, meta- cognitive factors, and negative emotions in predicting of substance dependency disorder. Method: Subjects were 70 patients with substance dependence disorder and 70 normal individuals (total 140. Substance dependants were selected of outpatient treatment centers and the normal sample was selected of the general population too. Sampling methods in both samples were convenience sampling. All people were assessed by MCQ-30, White Bear Suppression Inventory, and Beck’s Anxiety and Depression Questionnaires. For data analysis, discriminant analysis were used. Results: Negative meta-cognitive beliefs about worry, depression, and thought suppression were the most significant predictors of substance dependence disorder. Conclusion: Through meta-cognitive beliefs, thought suppression and negative emotion (especially depression, substance dependency disorder can be predicted. Based on this model can be used to take a substance dependency disorder prevention approach and psychotherapy approach (based on cognitive and meta-cognitive therapies. In addition, the findings of this research can be applied in clinical and counseling environments to help substance dependant clients.

Auditory hallucinations: A review of the ERC "VOICE" project.

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Hugdahl, Kenneth

2015-06-22

In this invited review I provide a selective overview of recent research on brain mechanisms and cognitive processes involved in auditory hallucinations. The review is focused on research carried out in the "VOICE" ERC Advanced Grant Project, funded by the European Research Council, but I also review and discuss the literature in general. Auditory hallucinations are suggested to be perceptual phenomena, with a neuronal origin in the speech perception areas in the temporal lobe. The phenomenology of auditory hallucinations is conceptualized along three domains, or dimensions; a perceptual dimension, experienced as someone speaking to the patient; a cognitive dimension, experienced as an inability to inhibit, or ignore the voices, and an emotional dimension, experienced as the "voices" having primarily a negative, or sinister, emotional tone. I will review cognitive, imaging, and neurochemistry data related to these dimensions, primarily the first two. The reviewed data are summarized in a model that sees auditory hallucinations as initiated from temporal lobe neuronal hyper-activation that draws attentional focus inward, and which is not inhibited due to frontal lobe hypo-activation. It is further suggested that this is maintained through abnormal glutamate and possibly gamma-amino-butyric-acid transmitter mediation, which could point towards new pathways for pharmacological treatment. A final section discusses new methods of acquiring quantitative data on the phenomenology and subjective experience of auditory hallucination that goes beyond standard interview questionnaires, by suggesting an iPhone/iPod app.

Does dissociation mediate the relationship between childhood trauma and hallucinations, delusions in first episode psychosis?

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Sun, Pamela; Alvarez-Jimenez, Mario; Simpson, Katrina; Lawrence, Katherine; Peach, Natalie; Bendall, Sarah

2018-04-11

Childhood trauma has been linked to the presence of delusions and hallucinations in psychosis, although the mechanisms underlying this relationship require elucidation. Dissociation, characterized by disruptions to the integrative functioning of several core mental domains, has emerged as a potential mechanism. There is a paucity of research using a clinician-rated measure of dissociation to test the indirect effect of dissociation on the relationship between childhood trauma and psychotic symptoms. This study aimed to investigate whether dissociation mediated both the relationships between childhood trauma and hallucinations, and childhood trauma and delusions utilizing a clinician-administered measure of dissociation, namely the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders - Revised (SCID-D-R). Sixty-six first-episode psychosis (FEP) participants completed a research interview and questionnaires. Information about experiences of childhood trauma, psychosis, dissociation, general psychopathology and demographics were collected. When using the SCID-D-R, childhood trauma positively correlated with dissociation. Further, dissociation mediated the relationship between childhood trauma and delusions. Contrary to previous findings, we found no relationship between dissociation and hallucinations and no mediating effect of dissociation on the association between childhood trauma and hallucinations. The results of the SCID-D-R differed significantly from those of the Dissociative Experiences Scale-II (DES-II) which were consistent with previous research. Our findings are the first to use a clinician-rated measure to test the mediating effect of dissociation on the relationship between childhood trauma and positive symptoms (i.e., hallucinations and delusions). Given the discrepancies in results between the SCID-D-R and DES-II, how dissociation is measured in future research is an important consideration. The results add to a body of work that

How semantic deficits in schizotypy help understand language and thought disorders in schizophrenia: a systematic and integrative review

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Hélio Anderson Tonelli

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Disorders of thought are psychopathological phenomena commonly present in schizophrenia and seem to result from deficits of semantic processing. Schizotypal personality traits consist of tendencies to think and behave that are qualitatively similar to schizophrenia, with greater vulnerability to such disorder. This study reviewed the literature about semantic processing deficits in samples of individuals with schizotypal traits and discussed the impact of current knowledge upon the comprehension of schizophrenic thought disorders. Studies about the cognitive performance of healthy individuals with schizotypal traits help understand the semantic deficits underlying psychotic thought disorders with the advantage of avoiding confounding factors usually found in samples of individuals with schizophrenia, such as the use of antipsychotics and hospitalizations. Methods: A search for articles published in Portuguese or English within the last 10 years on the databases MEDLINE, Web of Science, PsycInfo, LILACS and Biological Abstracts was conducted, using the keywords semantic processing, schizotypy and schizotypal personality disorder. Results: The search retrieved 44 manuscripts, out of which 11 were firstly chosen. Seven manuscripts were additionally included after reading these papers. Conclusion: The great majority of the included studies showed that schizotypal subjects might exhibit semantic processing deficits. They help clarify about the interfaces between cognitive, neurophysiological and neurochemical mechanisms underlying not only thought disorders, but also healthy human mind's creativity.

Association of auditory-verbal and visual hallucinations with impaired and improved recognition of colored pictures.

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Brébion, Gildas; Stephan-Otto, Christian; Usall, Judith; Huerta-Ramos, Elena; Perez del Olmo, Mireia; Cuevas-Esteban, Jorge; Haro, Josep Maria; Ochoa, Susana

2015-09-01

A number of cognitive underpinnings of auditory hallucinations have been established in schizophrenia patients, but few have, as yet, been uncovered for visual hallucinations. In previous research, we unexpectedly observed that auditory hallucinations were associated with poor recognition of color, but not black-and-white (b/w), pictures. In this study, we attempted to replicate and explain this finding. Potential associations with visual hallucinations were explored. B/w and color pictures were presented to 50 schizophrenia patients and 45 healthy individuals under 2 conditions of visual context presentation corresponding to 2 levels of visual encoding complexity. Then, participants had to recognize the target pictures among distractors. Auditory-verbal hallucinations were inversely associated with the recognition of the color pictures presented under the most effortful encoding condition. This association was fully mediated by working-memory span. Visual hallucinations were associated with improved recognition of the color pictures presented under the less effortful condition. Patients suffering from visual hallucinations were not impaired, relative to the healthy participants, in the recognition of these pictures. Decreased working-memory span in patients with auditory-verbal hallucinations might impede the effortful encoding of stimuli. Visual hallucinations might be associated with facilitation in the visual encoding of natural scenes, or with enhanced color perception abilities. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Thought-action fusion across anxiety disorder diagnoses: specificity and treatment effects.

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Thompson-Hollands, Johanna; Farchione, Todd J; Barlow, David H

2013-05-01

Thought-action fusion (TAF) is a cognitive error that has been frequently investigated within the context of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, evidence suggests that this error may also be present in disorders other than OCD, indicating that TAF is related to higher order factors rather than a specific diagnosis. We explored TAF in a sample of patients with mixed diagnoses undergoing treatment with a transdiagnostic CBT protocol. Elevated TAF levels at baseline were not specific to patients with OCD. However, the presence of any generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) diagnosis was unexpectedly the strongest predictor of likelihood TAF. Likelihood TAF, a particular component of TAF, was reduced after transdiagnostic treatment, and this reduction was not affected by the presence of a GAD diagnosis. Results indicate that TAF is responsive to treatment and should be assessed and, perhaps, treated in disorders beyond OCD.

The association between automatic thoughts about eating, the actual-ideal weight discrepancies, and eating disorders symptoms: a longitudinal study in late adolescence.

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Zarychta, Karolina; Luszczynska, Aleksandra; Scholz, Urte

2014-06-01

This study tested the reciprocal relationships between automatic thoughts about eating and the actual-ideal weight discrepancies, and their role in the formation and maintenance of eating disorders (ED) symptoms in a non-clinical sample of adolescents. In particular, we investigated whether thoughts about eating mediated the effects of weight discrepancies on ED formation and whether weight discrepancies mediated the effects of thoughts about eating on ED formation were investigated. Data were collected three times, with a 2-month interval between Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2), and a 9-month interval between T2 and Time 3 (T3). Adolescents (N = 55) aged 15-18 filled out the SCOFF Questionnaire, assessing eating disorders symptoms, and the Eating Disorder Thoughts Questionnaire, evaluating automatic thoughts. To assess weight discrepancies questions about actual (subjectively reported) and ideal body weight were asked followed by objective measurement of height and weight. Negative thoughts about eating (T2) mediated the relation between weight discrepancies (T1) and symptoms of anorexia and bulimia (T3). In addition, the association between negative thoughts (T1) and eating disorders symptoms (T3) was mediated by weight discrepancies (T2). The negative thoughts and the actual (both subjectively reported and objectively measured)-ideal weight discrepancies constitute a vicious cycle, related to higher ED symptoms. Prevention of eating disorders should be directed to adolescents who manifest large weight discrepancies or high levels of negative thoughts about eating, as they are at risk for developing eating disorder symptoms.

Thought-action fusion and schizotypy in undergraduate students.

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Muris, Peter; Merckelbach, Harald

2003-06-01

To examine the relationship between thought-action fusion (TAF) and schizotypy. In two separate samples of undergraduate students (Ns = 77 and 64), correlations were computed between a measure of TAF and indices of schizotypy and fantasy proneness. Positive correlations were found between TAF and various aspects of schizotypy (i.e. perceptual aberration, magical ideation, schizotypal personality characteristics, disposition to hallucinate). However, correlations between TAF and schizotypy no longer attained significance when controlling for fantasy proneness. At least in the non-clinical population, the connection between TAF and schizotypy seems to be a by-product of fantasy-prone individuals' tendency to report unusual experiences.

Autism Spectrum Disorders and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: Excitation/Inhibition Imbalance and Developmental Trajectories

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Roberto Canitano

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Autism spectrum disorders (ASD and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD share clinical and genetic components that have long been recognized. The two disorders co-occur more frequently than would be predicted by their respective prevalence, suggesting that a complex, multifactor association is involved. However, DSM-5 maintains the distinction between ASD, with core social and communication impairments, and SSD, including schizophrenia (SCZ, with hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder as essential features. ASD and SSD have common biological underpinnings that may emerge early in development and unfold over time. One of the hypotheses supporting the similarities in the social and cognitive disturbances of ASD and SSD relates to abnormalities in the ratio of excitatory to inhibitory cortical activity (E/I imbalance. E/I imbalance in neurodevelopmental disorders could be the consequence of abnormalities in genes coding for glutamatergic and GABAergic receptors or synaptic proteins followed by system derangements. SSD and ASD have been characterized as polygenic disorders in which to the onset and progression of disease is triggered by interactions among multiple genes. Mammalian target of rapamycin signaling is under intense investigation as a convergent altered pathway in the two spectrum disorders. Current understanding of shared and divergent patterns between ASD and SSD from molecular to clinical aspects is still incomplete and may be implemented by the research domain criteria approach.

What Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic-Hypnopompic Experiences?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Waters, Flavie; Blom, Jan Dirk; Thien Thanh Dang-Vu,; Cheyne, Allan J.; Alderson-Day, Ben; Woodruff, Peter; Collerton, Daniel

By definition, hallucinations occur only in the full waking state. Yet similarities to sleep-related experiences such as hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, dreams and parasomnias, have been noted since antiquity. These observations have prompted researchers to suggest a common aetiology for

The Pareidolia Test: A Simple Neuropsychological Test Measuring Visual Hallucination-Like Illusions

OpenAIRE

Mamiya, Yasuyuki; Nishio, Yoshiyuki; Watanabe, Hiroyuki; Yokoi, Kayoko; Uchiyama, Makoto; Baba, Toru; Iizuka, Osamu; Kanno, Shigenori; Kamimura, Naoto; Kazui, Hiroaki; Hashimoto, Mamoru; Ikeda, Manabu; Takeshita, Chieko; Shimomura, Tatsuo; Mori, Etsuro

2016-01-01

Background Visual hallucinations are a core clinical feature of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and this symptom is important in the differential diagnosis and prediction of treatment response. The pareidolia test is a tool that evokes visual hallucination-like illusions, and these illusions may be a surrogate marker of visual hallucinations in DLB. We created a simplified version of the pareidolia test and examined its validity and reliability to establish the clinical utility of this test....

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations during amitriptyline treatment.

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Hemmingsen, R; Rafaelsen, O J

1980-10-01

Four cases of hypnagogic or hypnopompic visual hallucinations in patients during amitriptyline treatment are reported. The hallucinations were clearly delineated, projected to the outer objective space and were for a short time experienced as real. The patients rapidly realized the unreality of the "sights", probably because they regained the full criticism and coherent thinking of an unpsychotic awake individual. There may be a relation between the effects of amitriptyline in brain, the changed pattern of sleep and the clinical recovery. Patients should be informed about the benign character of this type of hallucinatory phenomena so that treatment is not terminated at an undue time.

Hallucinators find meaning in noises: pareidolic illusions in dementia with Lewy bodies.

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Yokoi, Kayoko; Nishio, Yoshiyuki; Uchiyama, Makoto; Shimomura, Tatsuo; Iizuka, Osamu; Mori, Etsuro

2014-04-01

By definition, visual illusions and hallucinations differ in whether the perceived objects exist in reality. A recent study challenged this dichotomy, in which pareidolias, a type of complex visual illusion involving ambiguous forms being perceived as meaningful objects, are very common and phenomenologically similar to visual hallucinations in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We hypothesise that a common psychological mechanism exists between pareidolias and visual hallucinations in DLB that confers meaning upon meaningless visual information. Furthermore, we believe that these two types of visual misperceptions have a common underlying neural mechanism, namely, cholinergic insufficiency. The current study investigated pareidolic illusions using meaningless visual noise stimuli (the noise pareidolia test) in 34 patients with DLB, 34 patients with Alzheimer׳s disease and 28 healthy controls. Fifteen patients with DLB were administered the noise pareidolia test twice, before and after donepezil treatment. Three major findings were discovered: (1) DLB patients saw meaningful illusory images (pareidolias) in meaningless visual stimuli, (2) the number of pareidolic responses correlated with the severity of visual hallucinations, and (3) cholinergic enhancement reduced both the number of pareidolias and the severity of visual hallucinations in patients with DLB. These findings suggest that a common underlying psychological and neural mechanism exists between pareidolias and visual hallucinations in DLB. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Phenomenology and Clinical Correlates of Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Storch, Eric A.; Sulkowski, Michael L.; Nadeau, Josh; Lewin, Adam B.; Arnold, Elysse B.; Mutch, P. Jane; Jones, Anna M.; Murphy, Tanya K.

2013-01-01

This study investigated the phenomenology and clinical correlates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in youth with ASD (N = 102; range 7-16 years). The presence of suicidal thoughts and behavior was assessed through the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-Child and Parent Versions. Children and parents completed measures of anxiety severity,…

Visual hallucinations and pontine demyelination in a child: possible REM dissociation?

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Vita, Maria Gabriella; Batocchi, Anna Paola; Dittoni, Serena; Losurdo, Anna; Cianfoni, Alessandro; Stefanini, Maria Chiara; Vollono, Catello; Della Marca, Giacomo; Mariotti, Paolo

2008-12-15

An 11 year-old-boy acutely developed complex visual and acoustic hallucinations. Hallucinations, consisting of visions of a threatening, evil character of the Harry Potter saga, persisted for 3 days. Neurological and psychiatric examinations were normal. Ictal EEG was negative. MRI documented 3 small areas of hyperintense signal in the brainstem, along the paramedian and lateral portions of pontine tegmentum, one of which showed post-contrast enhancement. These lesions were likely of inflammatory origin, and treatment with immunoglobulins was started. Polysomnography was normal, multiple sleep latency test showed a mean sleep latency of 8 minutes, with one sleep-onset REM period. The pontine tegmentum is responsible for REM sleep regulation, and contains definite "REM-on" and "REM-off" regions. The anatomical distribution of the lesions permits us to hypothesize that hallucinations in this boy were consequent to a transient impairment of REM sleep inhibitory mechanisms, with the appearance of dream-like hallucinations during wake.

The Pareidolia Test: A Simple Neuropsychological Test Measuring Visual Hallucination-Like Illusions.

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Mamiya, Yasuyuki; Nishio, Yoshiyuki; Watanabe, Hiroyuki; Yokoi, Kayoko; Uchiyama, Makoto; Baba, Toru; Iizuka, Osamu; Kanno, Shigenori; Kamimura, Naoto; Kazui, Hiroaki; Hashimoto, Mamoru; Ikeda, Manabu; Takeshita, Chieko; Shimomura, Tatsuo; Mori, Etsuro

2016-01-01

Visual hallucinations are a core clinical feature of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and this symptom is important in the differential diagnosis and prediction of treatment response. The pareidolia test is a tool that evokes visual hallucination-like illusions, and these illusions may be a surrogate marker of visual hallucinations in DLB. We created a simplified version of the pareidolia test and examined its validity and reliability to establish the clinical utility of this test. The pareidolia test was administered to 52 patients with DLB, 52 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 20 healthy controls (HCs). We assessed the test-retest/inter-rater reliability using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and the concurrent validity using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) hallucinations score as a reference. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the pareidolia test to differentiate DLB from AD and HCs. The pareidolia test required approximately 15 minutes to administer, exhibited good test-retest/inter-rater reliability (ICC of 0.82), and moderately correlated with the NPI hallucinations score (rs = 0.42). Using an optimal cut-off score set according to the ROC analysis, and the pareidolia test differentiated DLB from AD with a sensitivity of 81% and a specificity of 92%. Our study suggests that the simplified version of the pareidolia test is a valid and reliable surrogate marker of visual hallucinations in DLB.

The Pareidolia Test: A Simple Neuropsychological Test Measuring Visual Hallucination-Like Illusions.

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Yasuyuki Mamiya

Full Text Available Visual hallucinations are a core clinical feature of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB, and this symptom is important in the differential diagnosis and prediction of treatment response. The pareidolia test is a tool that evokes visual hallucination-like illusions, and these illusions may be a surrogate marker of visual hallucinations in DLB. We created a simplified version of the pareidolia test and examined its validity and reliability to establish the clinical utility of this test.The pareidolia test was administered to 52 patients with DLB, 52 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD and 20 healthy controls (HCs. We assessed the test-retest/inter-rater reliability using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC and the concurrent validity using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI hallucinations score as a reference. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC analysis was used to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the pareidolia test to differentiate DLB from AD and HCs.The pareidolia test required approximately 15 minutes to administer, exhibited good test-retest/inter-rater reliability (ICC of 0.82, and moderately correlated with the NPI hallucinations score (rs = 0.42. Using an optimal cut-off score set according to the ROC analysis, and the pareidolia test differentiated DLB from AD with a sensitivity of 81% and a specificity of 92%.Our study suggests that the simplified version of the pareidolia test is a valid and reliable surrogate marker of visual hallucinations in DLB.

Structural covariance in the hallucinating brain: a voxel-based morphometry study

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Modinos, Gemma; Vercammen, Ans; Mechelli, Andrea; Knegtering, Henderikus; McGuire, Philip K.; Aleman, André

2009-01-01

Background Neuroimaging studies have indicated that a number of cortical regions express altered patterns of structural covariance in schizophrenia. The relation between these alterations and specific psychotic symptoms is yet to be investigated. We used voxel-based morphometry to examine regional grey matter volumes and structural covariance associated with severity of auditory verbal hallucinations. Methods We applied optimized voxel-based morphometry to volumetric magnetic resonance imaging data from 26 patients with medication-resistant auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs); statistical inferences were made at p < 0.05 after correction for multiple comparisons. Results Grey matter volume in the left inferior frontal gyrus was positively correlated with severity of AVHs. Hallucination severity influenced the pattern of structural covariance between this region and the left superior/middle temporal gyri, the right inferior frontal gyrus and hippocampus, and the insula bilaterally. Limitations The results are based on self-reported severity of auditory hallucinations. Complementing with a clinician-based instrument could have made the findings more compelling. Future studies would benefit from including a measure to control for other symptoms that may covary with AVHs and for the effects of antipsychotic medication. Conclusion The results revealed that overall severity of AVHs modulated cortical intercorrelations between frontotemporal regions involved in language production and verbal monitoring, supporting the critical role of this network in the pathophysiology of hallucinations. PMID:19949723

The prevalence of visual hallucinations in non-affective psychosis, and the role of perception and attention.

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van Ommen, M M; van Beilen, M; Cornelissen, F W; Smid, H G O M; Knegtering, H; Aleman, A; van Laar, T

2016-06-01

Little is known about visual hallucinations (VH) in psychosis. We investigated the prevalence and the role of bottom-up and top-down processing in VH. The prevailing view is that VH are probably related to altered top-down processing, rather than to distorted bottom-up processing. Conversely, VH in Parkinson's disease are associated with impaired visual perception and attention, as proposed by the Perception and Attention Deficit (PAD) model. Auditory hallucinations (AH) in psychosis, however, are thought to be related to increased attention. Our retrospective database study included 1119 patients with non-affective psychosis and 586 controls. The Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences established the VH rate. Scores on visual perception tests [Degraded Facial Affect Recognition (DFAR), Benton Facial Recognition Task] and attention tests [Response Set-shifting Task, Continuous Performance Test-HQ (CPT-HQ)] were compared between 75 VH patients, 706 non-VH patients and 485 non-VH controls. The lifetime VH rate was 37%. The patient groups performed similarly on cognitive tasks; both groups showed worse perception (DFAR) than controls. Non-VH patients showed worse attention (CPT-HQ) than controls, whereas VH patients did not perform differently. We did not find significant VH-related impairments in bottom-up processing or direct top-down alterations. However, the results suggest a relatively spared attentional performance in VH patients, whereas face perception and processing speed were equally impaired in both patient groups relative to controls. This would match better with the increased attention hypothesis than with the PAD model. Our finding that VH frequently co-occur with AH may support an increased attention-induced 'hallucination proneness'.

Thought Disorder and Communication Deviance as Predictors of Outcome in Youth at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

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Bearden, Carrie E.; Wu, Keng Nei; Caplan, Rochelle; Cannon, Tyrone D.

2011-01-01

Objective: Given the fundamental role of thought disorder in schizophrenia, subtle communication disturbance may be a valuable predictor of subsequent development of psychosis. Here we examined the contribution of thought and communication disturbance to the prediction of outcome in adolescents identified as putatively prodromal for psychosis.…

Scientific and ethical issues related to deep brain stimulation for disorders of mood, behavior, and thought.

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Rabins, Peter; Appleby, Brian S; Brandt, Jason; DeLong, Mahlon R; Dunn, Laura B; Gabriëls, Loes; Greenberg, Benjamin D; Haber, Suzanne N; Holtzheimer, Paul E; Mari, Zoltan; Mayberg, Helen S; McCann, Evelyn; Mink, Sallie P; Rasmussen, Steven; Schlaepfer, Thomas E; Vawter, Dorothy E; Vitek, Jerrold L; Walkup, John; Mathews, Debra J H

2009-09-01

A 2-day consensus conference was held to examine scientific and ethical issues in the application of deep brain stimulation for treating mood and behavioral disorders, such as major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Tourette syndrome. The primary objectives of the conference were to (1) establish consensus among participants about the design of future clinical trials of deep brain stimulation for disorders of mood, behavior, and thought and (2) develop standards for the protection of human subjects participating in such studies. Conference participants identified 16 key points for guiding research in this growing field. The adoption of the described guidelines would help to protect the safety and rights of research subjects who participate in clinical trials of deep brain stimulation for disorders of mood, behavior, and thought and have further potential to benefit other stakeholders in the research process, including clinical researchers and device manufactures. That said, the adoption of the guidelines will require broad and substantial commitment from many of these same stakeholders.

Auditory Hallucinations and the Brain’s Resting-State Networks: Findings and Methodological Observations

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Alderson-Day, Ben; Diederen, Kelly; Fernyhough, Charles; Ford, Judith M.; Horga, Guillermo; Margulies, Daniel S.; McCarthy-Jones, Simon; Northoff, Georg; Shine, James M.; Turner, Jessica; van de Ven, Vincent; van Lutterveld, Remko; Waters, Flavie; Jardri, Renaud

2016-01-01

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the potential for alterations to the brain’s resting-state networks (RSNs) to explain various kinds of psychopathology. RSNs provide an intriguing new explanatory framework for hallucinations, which can occur in different modalities and population groups, but which remain poorly understood. This collaboration from the International Consortium on Hallucination Research (ICHR) reports on the evidence linking resting-state alterations to auditory hallucinations (AH) and provides a critical appraisal of the methodological approaches used in this area. In the report, we describe findings from resting connectivity fMRI in AH (in schizophrenia and nonclinical individuals) and compare them with findings from neurophysiological research, structural MRI, and research on visual hallucinations (VH). In AH, various studies show resting connectivity differences in left-hemisphere auditory and language regions, as well as atypical interaction of the default mode network and RSNs linked to cognitive control and salience. As the latter are also evident in studies of VH, this points to a domain-general mechanism for hallucinations alongside modality-specific changes to RSNs in different sensory regions. However, we also observed high methodological heterogeneity in the current literature, affecting the ability to make clear comparisons between studies. To address this, we provide some methodological recommendations and options for future research on the resting state and hallucinations. PMID:27280452

Simulating Auditory Hallucinations in a Video Game

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Weinel, Jonathan; Cunningham, Stuart

2017-01-01

In previous work the authors have proposed the concept of 'ASC Simulations': including audio-visual installations and experiences, as well as interactive video game systems, which simulate altered states of consciousness (ASCs) such as dreams and hallucinations. Building on the discussion...... of the authors' previous paper, where a large-scale qualitative study explored the changes to auditory perception that users of various intoxicating substances report, here the authors present three prototype audio mechanisms for simulating hallucinations in a video game. These were designed in the Unity video...... that make up the player character, and in future developments of this type of work we foresee a more advanced, standardised interface that models the senses, emotions and state of consciousness of player avatars....

Visual Hallucinations Due to Rivastigmine Transdermal Patch Application in Alzheimer's Disease; The First Case Report

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Yıldız Değirmenci

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Rivastigmine is a well-known dual acting acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase inhibitor, which is effective on behavioral and psychiatric symptoms including hallucinations, as well as cognitive symptoms of dementia. The most common adverse effects of rivastigmine related to cholinergic stimulation in brain and peripheral tissues are gastrointestinal, cardiorespiratory, extrapyramidal, genitourinary, musculoskeletal symptoms, sleep disturbances, and skin irritations with the transdermal patch form in particular. Despite to the previous reports revealing the improving effects of the drug on hallucinations, we presented a-80 year old women with Alzheimer's disease suffering from visual hallucinations whose complaints began with rivastigmine treatment. Since the patient had recent memory disturbance without any behavioral and/or psychiatric symptoms before rivastigmine administration, and visual hallucinations disappeared with the discontinuation of the drug, visual hallucinations were attributed to rivastigmine.

Comparing attentional control and intrusive thoughts in obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and non clinical population.

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Mehri Moradi

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Attention is an important factor in information processing; obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD are two main emotional disorders with a chronic course. This research examined the relationship among attentional control and intrusive thoughts (worry, rumination and obsession in these disorders. It was hypothesized that attentional control is a common factor in OCD and GAD. In addition, we compared worry, rumination and obsession among OCD, GAD and non- clinical participants.The research sample included three groups: OCD (n = 25, GAD (n = 30 and non- clinical samples (n = 56. Data were collected using the Attentional Control Scale (ACS, Rumination Response Scale (RRS, Pennsylvania State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI, Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28. Data were analyzed using MANOVA and MANCOVA by SPSS-17.Multivariate Analysis of Variance revealed that the OCD and GAD groups reported greater deficits in attentional control, higher obsessive-compulsive symptoms, rumination, worry, anxiety and depression compared to the control group.This research indicated a great attentional deficit in obsessive- compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. However, no significant difference was found between these two disorders.

Why people see things that are not there: a novel Perception and Attention Deficit model for recurrent complex visual hallucinations.

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Collerton, Daniel; Perry, Elaine; McKeith, Ian

2005-12-01

As many as two million people in the United Kingdom repeatedly see people, animals, and objects that have no objective reality. Hallucinations on the border of sleep, dementing illnesses, delirium, eye disease, and schizophrenia account for 90% of these. The remainder have rarer disorders. We review existing models of recurrent complex visual hallucinations (RCVH) in the awake person, including cortical irritation, cortical hyperexcitability and cortical release, top-down activation, misperception, dream intrusion, and interactive models. We provide evidence that these can neither fully account for the phenomenology of RCVH, nor for variations in the frequency of RCVH in different disorders. We propose a novel Perception and Attention Deficit (PAD) model for RCVH. A combination of impaired attentional binding and poor sensory activation of a correct proto-object, in conjunction with a relatively intact scene representation, bias perception to allow the intrusion of a hallucinatory proto-object into a scene perception. Incorporation of this image into a context-specific hallucinatory scene representation accounts for repetitive hallucinations. We suggest that these impairments are underpinned by disturbances in a lateral frontal cortex-ventral visual stream system. We show how the frequency of RCVH in different diseases is related to the coexistence of attentional and visual perceptual impairments; how attentional and perceptual processes can account for their phenomenology; and that diseases and other states with high rates of RCVH have cholinergic dysfunction in both frontal cortex and the ventral visual stream. Several tests of the model are indicated, together with a number of treatment options that it generates.

Insomnia and hallucinations in the general population: Findings from the 2000 and 2007 British Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys.

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Sheaves, Bryony; Bebbington, Paul E; Goodwin, Guy M; Harrison, Paul J; Espie, Colin A; Foster, Russell G; Freeman, Daniel

2016-07-30

Insomnia is common in people experiencing psychosis. It has been identified as a contributory cause of paranoia, but any causal relationship with hallucinations has yet to be established. We tested the hypotheses that insomnia i) has a cross-sectional association with hallucinations ii) predicts new inceptions of hallucinations and iii) that these associations remain after controlling for depression, anxiety, and paranoia. Data from the second (2000, N=8580) and third (2007, N=7403) British Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys were used to assess cross-sectional associations between insomnia and hallucinations. The 2000 dataset included an 18 month follow up of a subsample (N=2406) used to test whether insomnia predicted new inceptions of hallucinations. Insomnia was associated with hallucinations in both cross-sectional datasets. Mild sleep problems were associated with 2-3 times greater odds of reporting hallucinations, whilst chronic insomnia was associated with four times greater odds. Insomnia was also associated with increased odds of hallucinations occurring de novo over the next 18 months. These associations remained significant, although with smaller odds ratios, after controlling for depression, anxiety and paranoia. This is the first longitudinal evidence that insomnia is associated with the development of hallucinatory experiences. Effective treatment of insomnia may lessen the occurrence of hallucinations. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.

The misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder as a psychotic disorder: some of its causes and their influence on therapy.

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Meyer, Friederike; Meyer, Thomas D

2009-01-01

Looking at chart records bipolar disorder is often misdiagnosed as a psychotic disorder but no study has ever systematically looked into the reasons. One reason for misdiagnoses could be that clinicians use heuristics like the prototype approach in routine practice instead of strictly adhering to the diagnostic criteria. Using an experimental approach we investigated if the use of heuristics can explain when a diagnosis of psychotic disorder is given instead of bipolar disorder. We systematically varied information about the presence or absence of specific symptoms, i.e. hallucinations and decreased need for sleep during a manic episode. Experimentally varied case vignettes were randomly sent to psychiatrists in Southern Germany. The four versions of the case vignette all described the same person in a manic state and differed only in two aspects: the presence or absence of auditory hallucinations and of decreased need for sleep. The psychiatrists were asked to make a diagnosis, to rate their confidence in their diagnosis, and to recommend treatments. Almost half of the 142 psychiatrists (45%) did not diagnose bipolar disorder. Mentioning hallucinations decreased the likelihood of diagnosing bipolar disorder. The information about decreased need for sleep only affected the diagnosis significantly, if schizoaffective disorder was considered a bipolar disorder. Our results suggest that clinicians indeed use heuristics when making diagnostic decisions instead of strictly adhering to diagnostic criteria. More research is needed to better understand diagnostic decision making, especially under real life settings, and this might also be of interest when revising diagnostic manuals such as DSM.

Top-down modulation, emotion, and hallucination

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Aleman, A; Kahn, RS

2002-01-01

We argue that the pivotal role assigned by Northoff to the principle of top-down modulation in catatonia might successfully be applied to other symptoms of schizophrenia, for example, hallucinations. Second, we propose that Northoffs account would benefit from a more comprehensive analysis of the

[Formed visual hallucination after excision of the right temporo parietal cystic meningioma--a case report].

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Yoshimura, Masaki; Uchiyama, Yoshinori; Kaneko, Akira; Hayashi, Noriko; Yamanaka, Kazuhiro; Iwai, Yoshiyasu

2010-08-01

We report the case of a 64-year-old woman with cystic meningioma; this patients was otherwise healthy and experienced formed visual hallucinations after excision of the tumor. She experienced diplopia associated with metamorphopsia, which had persisted for 5 years only when she laid down and turned on her left side. After the excision of the convexity meningioma located in the right temporoparietal lobe, she experienced several types of formed visual hallucinations such as closet-like pictures, flowers sketched on stones, falling maple-like leaves, and moving or wriggling dwarves. She was alert and her visual field was normal; further, she did not experience delirium or seizures. She experienced these hallucinations only when she closed her eyes; these hallucinations persisted for 3 days after the operation. The patient illustrated her observations with beautiful sketches, and the mechanism of visual hallucinations was studied.

Dysfunctional Career Thoughts and Attitudes as Predictors of Vocational Identity among Young Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

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Dipeolu, Abiola; Sniatecki, Jessica L.; Storlie, Cassandra A.; Hargrave, Stephanie

2013-01-01

This study examined dysfunctional career thoughts and attitudes as predictors of vocational identity among high school students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Regression analysis results indicated that dysfunctional career thoughts and attitudes were significant predictors of vocational identity, accounting for 42% of the…

Factor structure and clinical correlates of the Food Thought Suppression Inventory within treatment seeking obese women with binge eating disorder

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Barnes, Rachel D.; Sawaoka, Takuya; White, Marney A.; Masheb, Robin M.; Grilo, Carlos M.

2013-01-01

Prior research on the relations among eating behaviors and thought suppression is limited to a measure of general thought suppression, the White Bear Suppression Inventory. To address this limitation, researchers recently validated the Food Thought Suppression Inventory (FTSI). Analyses using this measure suggest that food thought suppression is distinct from and is more predictive of eating disorder psychopathology than is general thought suppression. The FTSI, however, has not yet been validated in clinical samples. The purpose of the current study is to examine the factor structure and clinical correlates of the FTSI within treatment seeking obese women with binge eating disorder (BED; N = 128). Analyses revealed a valid and reliable one-factor measure of food thought suppression that was related to higher levels of eating and general psychopathology. The findings provide evidence for the use of the FTSI with obese women with BED. Future research should examine the psychometric properties of the FTSI within larger and more diverse samples. PMID:23265399

Factor structure and clinical correlates of the Food Thought Suppression Inventory within treatment seeking obese women with binge eating disorder.

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Barnes, Rachel D; Sawaoka, Takuya; White, Marney A; Masheb, Robin M; Grilo, Carlos M

2013-01-01

Prior research on the relations among eating behaviors and thought suppression is limited to a measure of general thought suppression, the White Bear Suppression Inventory. To address this limitation, researchers recently validated the Food Thought Suppression Inventory (FTSI). Analyses using this measure suggest that food thought suppression is distinct from and is more predictive of eating disorder psychopathology than is general thought suppression. The FTSI, however, has not yet been validated in clinical samples. The purpose of the current study is to examine the factor structure and clinical correlates of the FTSI within treatment seeking obese women with binge eating disorder (BED; N=128). Analyses revealed a valid and reliable one-factor measure of food thought suppression that was related to higher levels of eating and general psychopathology. The findings provide evidence for the use of the FTSI with obese women with BED. Future research should examine the psychometric properties of the FTSI within larger and more diverse samples. Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Differentiating between visual hallucination-free dementia with Lewy bodies and corticobasal syndrome on the basis of neuropsychology and perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography

OpenAIRE

Misch, Michael R; Mitchell, Sara; Francis, Philip L; Sherborn, Kayla; Meradje, Katayoun; McNeely, Alicia A; Honjo, Kie; Zhao, Jiali; Scott, Christopher JM; Caldwell, Curtis B; Ehrlich, Lisa; Shammi, Prathiba; MacIntosh, Bradley J; Bilbao, Juan M; Lang, Anthony E

2014-01-01

Introduction Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Corticobasal Syndrome (CBS) are atypical parkinsonian disorders with fronto-subcortical and posterior cognitive dysfunction as common features. While visual hallucinations are a good predictor of Lewy body pathology and are rare in CBS, they are not exhibited in all cases of DLB. Given the clinical overlap between these disorders, neuropsychological and imaging markers may aid in distinguishing these entities. Methods Prospectively recruited ca...

Alternative psychosis (forced normalisation) in epilepsy

African Journals Online (AJOL)

changed, this should always be considered as a potential cause of a new or ... psychosis with thought disorder, delusions, hallucinations. • significant .... On mental status examination, the patient's behaviour was .... appeared for the first time.

Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation for the treatment of auditory hallucinations: a preliminary open-label study.

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Rosenberg, Oded; Roth, Yiftach; Kotler, Moshe; Zangen, Abraham; Dannon, Pinhas

2011-02-09

Schizophrenia is a chronic and disabling disease that presents with delusions and hallucinations. Auditory hallucinations are usually expressed as voices speaking to or about the patient. Previous studies have examined the effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the temporoparietal cortex on auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic patients. Our aim was to explore the potential effect of deep TMS, using the H coil over the same brain region on auditory hallucinations. Eight schizophrenic patients with refractory auditory hallucinations were recruited, mainly from Beer Ya'akov Mental Health Institution (Tel Aviv university, Israel) ambulatory clinics, as well as from other hospitals outpatient populations. Low-frequency deep TMS was applied for 10 min (600 pulses per session) to the left temporoparietal cortex for either 10 or 20 sessions. Deep TMS was applied using Brainsway's H1 coil apparatus. Patients were evaluated using the Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale (AHRS) as well as the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms scores (SAPS), Clinical Global Impressions (CGI) scale, and the Scale for Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS). This preliminary study demonstrated a significant improvement in AHRS score (an average reduction of 31.7% ± 32.2%) and to a lesser extent improvement in SAPS results (an average reduction of 16.5% ± 20.3%). In this study, we have demonstrated the potential of deep TMS treatment over the temporoparietal cortex as an add-on treatment for chronic auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic patients. Larger samples in a double-blind sham-controlled design are now being preformed to evaluate the effectiveness of deep TMS treatment for auditory hallucinations. This trial is registered with clinicaltrials.gov (identifier: NCT00564096).

Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation for the treatment of auditory hallucinations: a preliminary open-label study

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Zangen Abraham

2011-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Schizophrenia is a chronic and disabling disease that presents with delusions and hallucinations. Auditory hallucinations are usually expressed as voices speaking to or about the patient. Previous studies have examined the effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS over the temporoparietal cortex on auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic patients. Our aim was to explore the potential effect of deep TMS, using the H coil over the same brain region on auditory hallucinations. Patients and methods Eight schizophrenic patients with refractory auditory hallucinations were recruited, mainly from Beer Ya'akov Mental Health Institution (Tel Aviv university, Israel ambulatory clinics, as well as from other hospitals outpatient populations. Low-frequency deep TMS was applied for 10 min (600 pulses per session to the left temporoparietal cortex for either 10 or 20 sessions. Deep TMS was applied using Brainsway's H1 coil apparatus. Patients were evaluated using the Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale (AHRS as well as the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms scores (SAPS, Clinical Global Impressions (CGI scale, and the Scale for Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS. Results This preliminary study demonstrated a significant improvement in AHRS score (an average reduction of 31.7% ± 32.2% and to a lesser extent improvement in SAPS results (an average reduction of 16.5% ± 20.3%. Conclusions In this study, we have demonstrated the potential of deep TMS treatment over the temporoparietal cortex as an add-on treatment for chronic auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic patients. Larger samples in a double-blind sham-controlled design are now being preformed to evaluate the effectiveness of deep TMS treatment for auditory hallucinations. Trial registration This trial is registered with clinicaltrials.gov (identifier: NCT00564096.

Elevated Voriconazole Level Associated With Hallucinations and Suicidal Ideation: A Case Report.

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Jansen, Jeffrey W; Sen, Sumon K; Moenster, Ryan P

2017-01-01

Voriconazole, a broad-spectrum antifungal, has been associated with visual and auditory hallucinations. We report the case of patient being treated with voriconazole for pulmonary aspergillosis who developed visual hallucinations and new suicidal ideation with plan. Voriconazole troughs were supratherapeutic (9.0 mcg/mL) and the patient was positive for the CYP2C19*1/*2 allele.

Psychological Therapies for Auditory Hallucinations (Voices): Current Status and Key Directions for Future Research

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Thomas, N.; Hayward, M.; Peters, E; van der Gaag, M.; Bentall, R.P.; Jenner, J.; Strauss, C.; Sommer, I.E.; Johns, L.C.; Varese, F.; Gracia-Montes, J.M.; Waters, F.; Dodgson, G.; McCarthy-Jones, S.

2014-01-01

This report from the International Consortium on Hallucinations Research considers the current status and future directions in research on psychological therapies targeting auditory hallucinations (hearing voices). Therapy approaches have evolved from behavioral and coping-focused interventions,

Suicidal thoughts/acts and clinical correlates in patients with depressive disorders in Asians: results from the REAP-AD study.

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Park, Seon-Cheol; Lee, Min-Soo; Hahn, Sang Woo; Si, Tian-Mei; Kanba, Shigenobu; Chong, Mian-Yoon; Yoon, Chee Kok; Udomratn, Pichet; Tripathi, Adarsh; Sartorius, Norman; Shinfuku, Naotaka; Maramis, Margarita M; Park, Yong Chon

2016-12-01

Using data from the Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns for Antidepressants (REAP-AD) study, we aimed to present the rates and clinical correlates of suicidal thoughts/acts in patients recruited from a total of 40 centres in 10 Asian countries/areas: China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Data from 1122 patients with depressive disorders in the REAP-AD study were used. The ICD-10 was employed to diagnose depressive episodes and recurrent depressive disorder. The presence or absence of suicidal thoughts/acts and profile of other depressive symptoms was established using the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines for depression. Country/area differences in rates of suicidal thoughts/acts were evaluated with the χ2 test. In addition, depressive symptom profiles, other clinical characteristics, and patterns of psychotropic drug prescription in depressed patients with and without suicidal thoughts/acts were compared using analysis of covariance for continuous variables and logistic regression analysis for discrete variables to adjust the effects of covariates. The rates of suicidal thoughts/acts in 10 countries/areas varied from 12.8% in Japan to 36.3% in China. Patients with suicidal thoughts/acts presented more persistent sadness (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=2.64, p<0.001), loss of interest (aOR=2.33, p<0.001), fatigue (aOR=1.58, p<0.001), insomnia (aOR=1.74, p<0.001), poor concentration (aOR=1.88, p<0.001), low self-confidence (aOR=1.78, p<0.001), poor appetite (aOR=2.27, p<0.001), guilt/self-blame (aOR=3.03, p<0.001), and use of mood stabilisers (aOR=1.79, p<0.001) than those without suicidal thoughts/acts. Suicidal thoughts/acts can indicate greater severity of depression, and are associated with a poorer response to antidepressants and increased burden of illness. Hence, suicidal thoughts/acts can provide a clinical index reflecting the clinical status of depressive

Lilliputian hallucinations in Schizophrenia: a case report

African Journals Online (AJOL)

SCIENTIFIC LETTER | http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ajpsy.v15i5.37. Afr J Psychiatry 2012 ... Her illness was characterized by auditory hallucinations of commenting and ... Further research should focus on firstly, developing an understanding of the ...

A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of visual hallucinations in the human striate cortex.

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Abid, Hina; Ahmad, Fayyaz; Lee, Soo Y; Park, Hyun W; Im, Dongmi; Ahmad, Iftikhar; Chaudhary, Safee U

2016-11-29

Human beings frequently experience fear, phobia, migraine and hallucinations, however, the cerebral mechanisms underpinning these conditions remain poorly understood. Towards this goal, in this work, we aim to correlate the human ocular perceptions with visual hallucinations, and map them to their cerebral origins. An fMRI study was performed to examine the visual cortical areas including the striate, parastriate and peristriate cortex in the occipital lobe of the human brain. 24 healthy subjects were enrolled and four visual patterns including hallucination circle (HCC), hallucination fan (HCF), retinotopy circle (RTC) and retinotopy cross (RTX) were used towards registering their impact in the aforementioned visual related areas. One-way analysis of variance was used to evaluate the significance of difference between induced activations. Multinomial regression and and K-means were used to cluster activation patterns in visual areas of the brain. Significant activations were observed in the visual cortex as a result of stimulus presentation. The responses induced by visual stimuli were resolved to Brodmann areas 17, 18 and 19. Activation data clustered into independent and mutually exclusive clusters with HCC registering higher activations as compared to HCF, RTC and RTX. We conclude that small circular objects, in rotation, tend to leave greater hallucinating impressions in the visual region. The similarity between observed activation patterns and those reported in conditions such as epilepsy and visual hallucinations can help elucidate the cortical mechanisms underlying these conditions. Trial Registration 1121_GWJUNG.

Khat-induced hypnagogic hallucinations.

Science.gov (United States)

Granek, M; Shalev, A; Weingarten, A M

1988-10-01

Khat is a plant whose leaves are chewed for their stimulating effect. This effect is attributed to cathinone, an alkaloid identical to dextroamphetamine. Khat chewing is widespread among eastern African and Yemenite populations and is believed to be innocuous. Our experience shows, however, that a substantial number of chronic khat chewers experience persistent hypnagogic hallucinations - a symptom that has not yet been described. Three vignettes illustrates this phenomena, which often interferes with psychiatric diagnosis. Different explanatory models are discussed, among them chronic suppression of REM sleep.

Spanish version of the Thought-Action Fusion Questionnaire and its application in eating disorders

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Jáuregui-Lobera I

2013-09-01

Full Text Available I Jáuregui-Lobera,1,3 MA Santed-Germán,2 P Bolaños-Ríos,3 O Garrido-Casals3 1Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Engineering Department, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain; 2Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatments Department, UNED, Madrid, Spain; 3Behavioral Sciences Institute, Seville, Spain Purpose: The aims of the study were to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Thought-Action Fusion Questionnaire (TAF-SP, as well as to determine its validity by evaluating the relationship of the TAF-SP to different instruments. Patients and methods: Two groups were studied: one comprising 146 patients with eating disorders; and another a group of 200 students. Results: Three factors were obtained: TAF–Moral; TAF–Likelihood-others; and TAF–Likelihood-oneself. The internal consistency of the TAF-SP was determined by means of Cronbach’s α coefficient, with values ranging between 0.84–0.95. The correlations with other instruments reflected adequate validity. The three-factor structure was tested by means of a linear structural equation model, and the structure fit satisfactorily. Differences in TAF-SP scores between the diagnostic subgroups were also analyzed. Conclusion: The TAF-SP meets the psychometric requirements for measuring thought-action fusion and shows adequate internal consistency and validity. Keywords: thought-action fusion, cognitive distortions, validation, eating disorders

Thought control strategies and rumination in youth with acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder following single-event trauma.

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Meiser-Stedman, Richard; Shepperd, Alicia; Glucksman, Ed; Dalgleish, Tim; Yule, William; Smith, Patrick

2014-02-01

Certain thought control strategies for managing the intrusive symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are thought to play a key role in its onset and maintenance. Whereas measures exist for the empirical assessment of such thought control strategies in adults, relatively few studies have explored how children and adolescents manage posttraumatic intrusive phenomena. In a prospective longitudinal study of 10-16-year-olds with PTSD, who were survivors of road traffic collisions and assaults, a variety of thought control strategies were assessed in the acute phase. These included strategies thought to be protective (reappraisal, social support) as well as maladaptive (distraction, punishment, worry). Ruminative responses to the trauma were assessed at the follow-up assessment. Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) at each assessment were associated with the use of punishment and reappraisal, whereas social support and rumination were associated with PTSS symptoms at follow-up. Distraction was unrelated to PTSS at any time point. Rumination accounted for variance in PTSS symptoms at follow-up, even when accounting for baseline PTSS, and was found to mediate the relationships between reappraisal and punishment at baseline and PTSS at the follow-up assessment. The present study found no evidence to support advocating any particular thought control strategy for managing the intrusive symptoms of PTSD in youth in the acute posttrauma phase, and raised concerns over the use of reappraisal coping strategies. The study underscores the importance of ruminative responses in the onset and maintenance of PTSD in trauma-exposed youth.

Case study: a young male with auditory hallucinations in paranoid schizophrenia.

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Kotowski, Abigail

2012-02-01

The purpose of this case study is to demonstrate use of the nursing process and the standardized nursing languages of NANDA International (NANDA-I), the Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC), and the Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) to assist a young male with paranoid schizophrenia to deal with auditory hallucinations. Data were obtained from the experience and expertise of the author and published literature. This case study demonstrates nurses' clinical decision making in providing care for an adolescent with mental illness. This case study provides the pertinent nursing diagnosis, patient outcomes, and nursing interventions for a young male with auditory hallucinations in paranoid schizophrenia. The use of NANDA-I, NOC, and NIC can provide the necessary framework for enhancing and improving the management of care with patients who experience auditory hallucinations in paranoid schizophrenia. © 2011, The Authors. International Journal of Nursing Terminologies and Classifications © 2011, NANDA International.

Cost-effectiveness of the HIT programme in patients with schizophrenia and persistent auditory hallucinations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stant, AD; TenVergert, EM; Groen, H; Jenner, JA; Nienhuis, FJ; van de Willige, G; Wiersma, D

Objective: To examine the cost-effectiveness of Hallucination focused Integrative Treatment (HIT) in patients with schizophrenia and a history of persistent auditory hallucinations. Method: Costs, in and outside the health care sector, and outcomes were registered prospectively during a period of 18

Improvement of auditory hallucinations and reduction of primary auditory area's activation following TMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Giesel, Frederik L.; Mehndiratta, Amit; Hempel, Albrecht; Hempel, Eckhard; Kress, Kai R.; Essig, Marco; Schröder, Johannes

2012-01-01

Background: In the present case study, improvement of auditory hallucinations following transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) therapy was investigated with respect to activation changes of the auditory cortices. Methods: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), activation of the auditory cortices was assessed prior to and after a 4-week TMS series of the left superior temporal gyrus in a schizophrenic patient with medication-resistant auditory hallucinations. Results: Hallucinations decreased slightly after the third and profoundly after the fourth week of TMS. Activation in the primary auditory area decreased, whereas activation in the operculum and insula remained stable. Conclusions: Combination of TMS and repetitive fMRI is promising to elucidate the physiological changes induced by TMS.

Dream content and intrusive thoughts in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

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Cavallotti, Simone; Casetta, Cecilia; Fanti, Valentina; Gambini, Orsola; Ostinelli, Edoardo G; Ranieri, Rebecca; Vanelli, Irene; D'Agostino, Armando

2016-10-30

Although central to any exhaustive theory of human subjectivity, the relationship between dream and waking consciousness remains uncertain. Some findings suggest that dream consciousness can be influenced by severe disorders of thought content. The suppression of unwanted thoughts has been shown to influence dream content in healthy individuals. In order to better define this phenomenon, we evaluated the persistence of obsessive/compulsive themes across the dream and waking cognition of OCD patients and in a control group of healthy subjects. Participants were administered a shortened version of the Thematic Apperception Test to produce a waking fantasy narration, and were trained to keep a dream diary. Dream and waking narrative contents were analyzed in order to recognize obsessive/compulsive themes, and to calculate Mean Dream Obsession/Compulsion (MDO, MDC) and Mean TAT Obsession/Compulsion (MTO, MTC) parameters. No differences were found between the two populations in terms of MDO, MDC, MTO, nor MTC. Density of obsessive and compulsive themes were significantly higher in dream reports than in waking narratives for both groups. No correlation was observed between MDO/MDC scores and Y-BOCS obsession/compulsion scores in the OCD group. These findings strengthen the discontinuity hypothesis, suggesting that ruminative aspects of cognition are somehow interrupted during dream activity. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

MR and genetics in schizophrenia: Focus on auditory hallucinations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aguilar, Eduardo Jesus; Sanjuan, Julio; Garcia-Marti, Gracian; Lull, Juan Jose; Robles, Montserrat

2008-01-01

Although many structural and functional abnormalities have been related to schizophrenia, until now, no single biological marker has been of diagnostic clinical utility. One way to obtain more valid findings is to focus on the symptoms instead of the syndrome. Auditory hallucinations (AHs) are one of the most frequent and reliable symptoms of psychosis. We present a review of our main findings, using a multidisciplinary approach, on auditory hallucinations. Firstly, by applying a new auditory emotional paradigm specific for psychosis, we found an enhanced activation of limbic and frontal brain areas in response to emotional words in these patients. Secondly, in a voxel-based morphometric study, we obtained a significant decreased gray matter concentration in the insula (bilateral), superior temporal gyrus (bilateral), and amygdala (left) in patients compared to healthy subjects. This gray matter loss was directly related to the intensity of AH. Thirdly, using a new method for looking at areas of coincidence between gray matter loss and functional activation, large coinciding brain clusters were found in the left and right middle temporal and superior temporal gyri. Finally, we summarized our main findings from our studies of the molecular genetics of auditory hallucinations. Taking these data together, an integrative model to explain the neurobiological basis of this psychotic symptom is presented

MR and genetics in schizophrenia: Focus on auditory hallucinations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Aguilar, Eduardo Jesus [Psychiatric Service, Clinic University Hospital, Avda. Blasco Ibanez 17, 46010 Valencia (Spain)], E-mail: eduardoj.aguilar@gmail.com; Sanjuan, Julio [Psychiatric Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Valencia University, Avda. Blasco Ibanez 17, 46010 Valencia (Spain); Garcia-Marti, Gracian [Department of Radiology, Hospital Quiron, Avda. Blasco Ibanez 14, 46010 Valencia (Spain); Lull, Juan Jose; Robles, Montserrat [ITACA Institute, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain)

2008-09-15

Although many structural and functional abnormalities have been related to schizophrenia, until now, no single biological marker has been of diagnostic clinical utility. One way to obtain more valid findings is to focus on the symptoms instead of the syndrome. Auditory hallucinations (AHs) are one of the most frequent and reliable symptoms of psychosis. We present a review of our main findings, using a multidisciplinary approach, on auditory hallucinations. Firstly, by applying a new auditory emotional paradigm specific for psychosis, we found an enhanced activation of limbic and frontal brain areas in response to emotional words in these patients. Secondly, in a voxel-based morphometric study, we obtained a significant decreased gray matter concentration in the insula (bilateral), superior temporal gyrus (bilateral), and amygdala (left) in patients compared to healthy subjects. This gray matter loss was directly related to the intensity of AH. Thirdly, using a new method for looking at areas of coincidence between gray matter loss and functional activation, large coinciding brain clusters were found in the left and right middle temporal and superior temporal gyri. Finally, we summarized our main findings from our studies of the molecular genetics of auditory hallucinations. Taking these data together, an integrative model to explain the neurobiological basis of this psychotic symptom is presented.

From intrusive to oscillating thoughts.

Science.gov (United States)

Peirce, Anne Griswold

2007-10-01

This paper focused on the possibility that intrusive thoughts (ITs) are a form of an evolutionary, adaptive, and complex strategy to prepare for and resolve stressful life events through schema formation. Intrusive thoughts have been studied in relation to individual conditions, such as traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. They have also been documented in the average person experiencing everyday stress. In many descriptions of thought intrusion, it is accompanied by thought suppression. Several theories have been put forth to describe ITs, although none provides a satisfactory explanation as to whether ITs are a normal process, a normal process gone astray, or a sign of pathology. There is also no consistent view of the role that thought suppression plays in the process. I propose that thought intrusion and thought suppression may be better understood by examining them together as a complex and adaptive mechanism capable of escalating in times of need. The ability of a biological mechanism to scale up in times of need is one hallmark of a complex and adaptive system. Other hallmarks of complexity, including self-similarity across scales, sensitivity to initial conditions, presence of feedback loops, and system oscillation, are also discussed in this article. Finally, I propose that thought intrusion and thought suppression are better described together as an oscillatory cycle.

Auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder: common phenomenology, common cause, common interventions?

Science.gov (United States)

McCarthy-Jones, Simon; Longden, Eleanor

2015-01-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH: 'hearing voices') are found in both schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this paper we first demonstrate that AVH in these two diagnoses share a qualitatively similar phenomenology. We then show that the presence of AVH in schizophrenia is often associated with earlier exposure to traumatic/emotionally overwhelming events, as it is by definition in PTSD. We next argue that the content of AVH relates to earlier traumatic events in a similar way in both PTSD and schizophrenia, most commonly having direct or indirect thematic links to emotionally overwhelming events, rather than being direct re-experiencing. We then propose, following cognitive models of PTSD, that the reconstructive nature of memory may be able to account for the nature of these associations between trauma and AVH content, as may threat-hypervigilance and the individual's personal goals. We conclude that a notable subset of people diagnosed with schizophrenia with AVH are having phenomenologically and aetiologically identical experiences to PTSD patients who hear voices. As such we propose that the iron curtain between AVH in PTSD (often termed 'dissociative AVH') and AVH in schizophrenia (so-called 'psychotic AVH') needs to be torn down, as these are often the same experience. One implication of this is that these trauma-related AVH require a common trans-diagnostic treatment strategy. Whilst antipsychotics are already increasingly being used to treat AVH in PTSD, we argue for the centrality of trauma-based interventions for trauma-based AVH in both PTSD and in people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder: common phenomenology, common cause, common interventions?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simon eMccarthy-Jones

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH: ‘hearing voices’ are found in both schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD. In this paper we first demonstrate that AVH in these two diagnoses share a qualitatively similar phenomenology. We then show that the presence of AVH in schizophrenia is often associated with earlier exposure to traumatic/emotionally overwhelming events, as it is by definition in PTSD. We next argue that the content of AVH relates to earlier traumatic events in a similar way in both PTSD and schizophrenia, most commonly having direct or indirect thematic links to emotionally overwhelming events, rather than being direct re-experiencing. We then propose, following cognitive models of PTSD, that the reconstructive nature of memory may be able to account for the nature of these associations between trauma and AVH content, as may threat-hypervigilance and the individual’s personal goals. We conclude that a notable subset of people diagnosed with schizophrenia with AVH are having phenomenologically and aetiologically identical experiences to PTSD patients who hear voices. As such we propose that the iron curtain between AVH in PTSD (often termed ‘dissociative AVH’ and AVH in schizophrenia (so-called ‘psychotic AVH’ needs to be torn down, as these are often the same experience. One implication of this is that these trauma-related AVH require a common trans-diagnostic treatment strategy. Whilst antipsychotics are already increasingly being used to treat AVH in PTSD, we argue for the centrality of trauma-based interventions for trauma-based AVH in both PTSD and in people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The relationship of thought-action fusion to pathologicial worry and generalized anxiety disorder.

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Hazlett-Stevens, Holly; Zucker, Bonnie G; Craske, Michelle G

2002-10-01

Meta-cognitive beliefs associated with pathological worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) may encompass the likelihood subtype of thought-action fusion (TAF), the belief that one's thoughts can influence outside events. In the current study of 494 undergraduate college students, positive correlations between scores on the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and the two Likelihood subscales of the TAF Scale were found, and participants endorsing at least some DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for GAD scored significantly higher on both TAF-Likelihood subscales than participants reporting no GAD symptoms. However, these TAF scales did not predict GAD diagnostic status with PSWQ included as a predictor. In contrast to previous research, the TAF-Moral scale did not correlate with worry. Relationships between TAF, pathological worry, and meta-cognition are discussed in relation to GAD.

Differentiating between visual hallucination-free dementia with Lewy bodies and corticobasal syndrome on the basis of neuropsychology and perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography.

Science.gov (United States)

Misch, Michael R; Mitchell, Sara; Francis, Philip L; Sherborn, Kayla; Meradje, Katayoun; McNeely, Alicia A; Honjo, Kie; Zhao, Jiali; Scott, Christopher Jm; Caldwell, Curtis B; Ehrlich, Lisa; Shammi, Prathiba; MacIntosh, Bradley J; Bilbao, Juan M; Lang, Anthony E; Black, Sandra E; Masellis, Mario

2014-01-01

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Corticobasal Syndrome (CBS) are atypical parkinsonian disorders with fronto-subcortical and posterior cognitive dysfunction as common features. While visual hallucinations are a good predictor of Lewy body pathology and are rare in CBS, they are not exhibited in all cases of DLB. Given the clinical overlap between these disorders, neuropsychological and imaging markers may aid in distinguishing these entities. Prospectively recruited case-control cohorts of CBS (n =31) and visual hallucination-free DLB (n =30), completed neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric measures as well as brain perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Perfusion data were available for forty-two controls. Behavioural, perfusion, and cortical volume and thickness measures were compared between the groups to identify features that serve to differentiate them. The Lewy body with no hallucinations group performed more poorly on measures of episodic memory compared to the corticobasal group, including the delayed and cued recall portions of the California Verbal Learning Test (F (1, 42) =23.1, P reproduction of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (F (1, 36) =9.7, P =0.004). The Lewy body group also demonstrated reduced perfusion in the left occipital pole compared to the corticobasal group (F (1,57) =7.4, P =0.009). At autopsy, the Lewy body cases all demonstrated mixed dementia with Lewy bodies, Alzheimer's disease and small vessel arteriosclerosis, while the corticobasal cases demonstrated classical corticobasal degeneration in five, dementia with agyrophilic grains + corticobasal degeneration + cerebral amyloid angiopathy in one, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy in two, and Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration-Ubiquitin/TAR DNA-binding protein 43 proteinopathy in one. MRI measures were not significantly different between the patient groups. Reduced perfusion in the left occipital region and worse

Recovering from Hallucinations: A Qualitative Study of Coping with Voices Hearing of People with Schizophrenia in Hong Kong

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Petrus Ng

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Auditory hallucination is a positive symptom of schizophrenia and has significant impacts on the lives of individuals. People with auditory hallucination require considerable assistance from mental health professionals. Apart from medications, they may apply different lay methods to cope with their voice hearing. Results from qualitative interviews showed that people with schizophrenia in the Chinese sociocultural context of Hong Kong were coping with auditory hallucination in different ways, including (a changing social contacts, (b manipulating the voices, and (c changing perception and meaning towards the voices. Implications for recovery from psychiatric illness of individuals with auditory hallucinations are discussed.

Auditory Hallucinations in Polyglots | Hemphill | South African ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The patients' mental performance was relatively better when the non-home language was used. In the psychosis of toxic, drug, and organic origin and in epilepsy, hallucinations may be multilingual, in contrast to schizophrenia. This is of value in differential diagnosis. A case of paranoid psychosis in which a White man had ...

Auditory top-down control and affective theory of mind in schizophrenia with and without hallucinations.

Science.gov (United States)

Rominger, Christian; Bleier, Angelika; Fitz, Werner; Marksteiner, Josef; Fink, Andreas; Papousek, Ilona; Weiss, Elisabeth M

2016-07-01

Social cognitive impairments may represent a core feature of schizophrenia and above all are a strong predictor of positive psychotic symptoms. Previous studies could show that reduced inhibitory top-down control contributes to deficits in theory of mind abilities and is involved in the genesis of hallucinations. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between auditory inhibition, affective theory of mind and the experience of hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. In the present study, 20 in-patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls completed a social cognition task (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test) and an inhibitory top-down Dichotic Listening Test. Schizophrenia patients with greater severity of hallucinations showed impaired affective theory of mind as well as impaired inhibitory top-down control. More dysfunctional top-down inhibition was associated with poorer affective theory of mind performance, and seemed to mediate the association between impairment to affective theory of mind and severity of hallucinations. The findings support the idea of impaired theory of mind as a trait marker of schizophrenia. In addition, dysfunctional top-down inhibition may give rise to hallucinations and may further impair affective theory of mind skills in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Technique: Generating Alternative Thoughts

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Serkan AKKOYUNLU

2013-04-01

Conclusion: Generating alternative explanations and balanced thoughts are the end point and important part of therapy work on automatic thoughts. When applied properly and rehearsed as homework between sessions, these methods may lead to improvement in many mental disorders. [JCBPR 2013; 2(1.000: 53-59

Self‐Disorders as schizophrenia spectrum vulnerability phenotypes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Raballo, Andrea

2011-01-01

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders are characterised by manifold psychopathological expressions, which might include major symptoms (such as delusions, hallucinations or social withdrawal), psychobehavioural enduring personality patterns (e.g. schizoid/schizotypal traits), or more subtle, quasi...

Preliminary study of relationships between hypnotic susceptibility and personality disorder functioning styles in healthy volunteers and personality disorder patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

He Wei

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Hypnotic susceptibility is one of the stable characteristics of individuals, but not closely related to the personality traits such as those measured by the five-factor model in the general population. Whether it is related to the personality disorder functioning styles remains unanswered. Methods In 77 patients with personality disorders and 154 healthy volunteers, we administered the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form C (SHSSC and the Parker Personality Measure (PERM tests. Results Patients with personality disorders showed higher passing rates on SHSSC Dream and Posthypnotic Amnesia items. No significant correlation was found in healthy volunteers. In the patients however, SHSSC Taste hallucination (β = 0.26 and Anosmia to Ammonia (β = -0.23 were significantly correlated with the PERM Borderline style; SHSSC Posthypnotic Amnesia was correlated with the PERM Schizoid style (β = 0.25 but negatively the PERM Narcissistic style (β = -0.23. Conclusions Our results provide limited evidence that could help to understand the abnormal cognitions in personality disorders, such as their hallucination and memory distortions.

[Nursing Experience of Using Mirror Visual Feedback for a Schizophrenia Patient With Visual Hallucinations].

Science.gov (United States)

Lan, Shu-Ling; Chen, Yu-Chi; Chang, Hsiu-Ju

2018-06-01

The aim of this paper was to describe the nursing application of mirror visual feedback in a patient suffering from long-term visual hallucinations. The intervention period was from May 15th to October 19th, 2015. Using the five facets of psychiatric nursing assessment, several health problems were observed, including disturbed sensory perceptions (prominent visual hallucinations) and poor self-care (e.g. limited abilities to self-bathe and put on clothing). Furthermore, "caregiver role strain" due to the related intense care burden was noted. After building up a therapeutic interpersonal relationship, the technique of brain plasticity and mirror visual feedback were performed using multiple nursing care methods in order to help the patient suppress her visual hallucinations by enhancing a different visual stimulus. We also taught her how to cope with visual hallucinations in a proper manner. The frequency and content of visual hallucinations were recorded to evaluate the effects of management. The therapeutic plan was formulated together with the patient in order to boost her self-confidence, and a behavior contract was implemented in order to improve her personal hygiene. In addition, psychoeducation on disease-related topics was provided to the patient's family, and they were encouraged to attend relevant therapeutic activities. As a result, her family became less passive and negative and more engaged in and positive about her future. The crisis of "caregiver role strain" was successfully resolved. The current experience is hoped to serve as a model for enhancing communication and cooperation between family and staff in similar medical settings.

Right prefrontal rTMS treatment for refractory auditory command hallucinations - a neuroSPECT assisted case study.

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Schreiber, Shaul; Dannon, Pinhas N; Goshen, Elinor; Amiaz, Revital; Zwas, Tzila S; Grunhaus, Leon

2002-11-30

Auditory command hallucinations probably arise from the patient's failure to monitor his/her own 'inner speech', which is connected to activation of speech perception areas of the left cerebral cortex and to various degrees of dysfunction of cortical circuits involved in schizophrenia as supported by functional brain imaging. We hypothesized that rapid transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), by increasing cortical activation of the right prefrontal brain region, would bring about a reduction of the hallucinations. We report our first schizophrenic patient affected with refractory command hallucinations treated with 10 Hz rTMS. Treatment was performed over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, with 1200 magnetic stimulations administered daily for 20 days at 90% motor threshold. Regional cerebral blood flow changes were monitored with neuroSPECT. Clinical evaluation and scores on the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale demonstrated a global improvement in the patient's condition, with no change in the intensity and frequency of the hallucinations. NeuroSPECT performed at intervals during and after treatment indicated a general improvement in cerebral perfusion. We conclude that right prefrontal rTMS may induce a general clinical improvement of schizophrenic brain function, without directly influencing the mechanism involved in auditory command hallucinations.

Is thought-action fusion specific to obsessive-compulsive disorder?: a mediating role of negative affect.

Science.gov (United States)

Abramowitz, J S; Whiteside, S; Lynam, D; Kalsy, S

2003-09-01

Thought-action fusion (TAF) is a cognitive bias presumed to underlie the development of obsessional problems (i.e. obsessive-compulsive disorder; OCD). Previous studies have found that TAF is related to not only OCD, but also to other anxiety disorders. In the present study we compared levels of TAF in OCD patients and in patients with other anxiety disorders, depression, and healthy controls to examine whether TAF is characteristic of individuals with emotional distress in general, as opposed to anxiety disorders per se. We also examined whether negative affect (i.e. anxiety and depression) mediates the relationship between OCD and TAF. Results indicated that OCD patients were characterized by higher scores on likelihood-self and likelihood-other TAF, but that this difference was predominately due to differences in negative affect. These findings support a model in which negative affect mediates the relationship between OCD and TAF.

Attentional Lapses in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Blank Rather Than Wandering Thoughts.

Science.gov (United States)

Van den Driessche, Charlotte; Bastian, Mikaël; Peyre, Hugo; Stordeur, Coline; Acquaviva, Éric; Bahadori, Sara; Delorme, Richard; Sackur, Jérôme

2017-10-01

People with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have difficulties sustaining their attention on external tasks. Such attentional lapses have often been characterized as the simple opposite of external sustained attention, but the different types of attentional lapses, and the subjective experiences to which they correspond, remain unspecified. In this study, we showed that unmedicated children (ages 6-12) with ADHD, when probed during a standard go/no-go task, reported more mind blanking (a mental state characterized by the absence of reportable content) than did control participants. This increase in mind blanking happened at the expense of both focused and wandering thoughts. We also found that methylphenidate reverted the level of mind blanking to baseline (i.e., the level of mind blanking reported by control children without ADHD). However, this restoration led to mind wandering more than to focused attention. In a second experiment, we extended these findings to adults who had subclinical ADHD. These results suggest that executive functions impaired in ADHD are required not only to sustain external attention but also to maintain an internal train of thought.

Pornography use in sexual minority males: Associations with body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms, thoughts about using anabolic steroids and quality of life.

Science.gov (United States)

Griffiths, Scott; Mitchison, Deborah; Murray, Stuart B; Mond, Jonathan M

2018-04-01

We examined two hypotheses regarding the potential association of pornography use with body image-related and eating disorder-related psychopathology among sexual minority males (i.e. non-heterosexual males). Our primary hypothesis was that pornography use would be associated with males' body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms, thoughts about using anabolic steroids and quality of life impairment; our secondary hypothesis was that the type of pornography, namely, professional versus amateur pornography, which contains idealised and non-idealised (i.e. regular) bodies, respectively, would moderate these associations. A sample of 2733 sexual minority males living in Australia and New Zealand completed an online survey that contained measures of pornography use, body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms, thoughts about using anabolic steroids and quality of life. Almost all (98.2%) participants reported pornography use with a median use of 5.33 hours per month. Multivariate analyses revealed that increased pornography use was associated with greater dissatisfaction with muscularity, body fat and height; greater eating disorder symptoms; more frequent thoughts about using anabolic steroids; and lower quality of life. Effect sizes for these associations were uniformly small. Neither relationship status nor genital dissatisfaction was associated with pornography use. The association between pornography use and thoughts about using anabolic steroids was stronger for viewers of professional pornography than viewers of amateur pornography. The findings suggest that the use of pornography is weakly associated with body dissatisfaction and related variables and that the type of pornography (amateur vs professional) viewed may be a moderating factor in some cases. Within the limits of a cross-sectional study design, these findings may have implications for clinicians who treat individuals with eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, anabolic-androgenic steroid

Hallucination- and speech-specific hypercoupling in frontotemporal auditory and language networks in schizophrenia using combined task-based fMRI data: An fBIRN study.

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Lavigne, Katie M; Woodward, Todd S

2018-04-01

Hypercoupling of activity in speech-perception-specific brain networks has been proposed to play a role in the generation of auditory-verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in schizophrenia; however, it is unclear whether this hypercoupling extends to nonverbal auditory perception. We investigated this by comparing schizophrenia patients with and without AVHs, and healthy controls, on task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data combining verbal speech perception (SP), inner verbal thought generation (VTG), and nonverbal auditory oddball detection (AO). Data from two previously published fMRI studies were simultaneously analyzed using group constrained principal component analysis for fMRI (group fMRI-CPCA), which allowed for comparison of task-related functional brain networks across groups and tasks while holding the brain networks under study constant, leading to determination of the degree to which networks are common to verbal and nonverbal perception conditions, and which show coordinated hyperactivity in hallucinations. Three functional brain networks emerged: (a) auditory-motor, (b) language processing, and (c) default-mode (DMN) networks. Combining the AO and sentence tasks allowed the auditory-motor and language networks to separately emerge, whereas they were aggregated when individual tasks were analyzed. AVH patients showed greater coordinated activity (deactivity for DMN regions) than non-AVH patients during SP in all networks, but this did not extend to VTG or AO. This suggests that the hypercoupling in AVH patients in speech-perception-related brain networks is specific to perceived speech, and does not extend to perceived nonspeech or inner verbal thought generation. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Visual hallucinations caused by Charles Bonnet Syndrome: A case ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

had no cognitive impairment and was fully aware of the ... eration. Ms P's main complaint was visual hallucinations. ... brother in front of her eyes. She also displayed ... her would seem to develop a full beard. .... Beta blocking agents. 4.

Depictions of auditory verbal hallucinations in news media.

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Vilhauer, Ruvanee P

2015-02-01

The characterization of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V), diverges from recent research literature, which demonstrates the occurrence of AVH in individuals who are psychologically healthy. This discrepancy raises the question of how the public perceives AVH. Public perceptions are important because they could potentially affect how individuals with AVH interpret these experiences and how people view voice hearers. Because media portrayals can provide a window into how phenomena are viewed by the public, an archival study of newspaper articles was carried out to examine depictions of AVH. A sample of 181 newspaper articles originating in the United States was analyzed using a content analysis approach. The majority of articles examined contained no suggestion that AVH are possible in psychologically healthy individuals. Most articles suggested that AVH were a symptom of mental illness, and many suggested that AVH were associated with criminal behavior, violence and suicidality. The news media examined tended to present a misleading and largely pathologizing view of AVH. More research is needed to shed light on how, and to what extent, public perceptions may influence those who experience AVH. © The Author(s) 2014.

Activation of serotonin 2A receptors underlies the psilocybin-induced effects on α oscillations, N170 visual-evoked potentials, and visual hallucinations.

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Kometer, Michael; Schmidt, André; Jäncke, Lutz; Vollenweider, Franz X

2013-06-19

Visual illusions and hallucinations are hallmarks of serotonergic hallucinogen-induced altered states of consciousness. Although the serotonergic hallucinogen psilocybin activates multiple serotonin (5-HT) receptors, recent evidence suggests that activation of 5-HT2A receptors may lead to the formation of visual hallucinations by increasing cortical excitability and altering visual-evoked cortical responses. To address this hypothesis, we assessed the effects of psilocybin (215 μg/kg vs placebo) on both α oscillations that regulate cortical excitability and early visual-evoked P1 and N170 potentials in healthy human subjects. To further disentangle the specific contributions of 5-HT2A receptors, subjects were additionally pretreated with the preferential 5-HT2A receptor antagonist ketanserin (50 mg vs placebo). We found that psilocybin strongly decreased prestimulus parieto-occipital α power values, thus precluding a subsequent stimulus-induced α power decrease. Furthermore, psilocybin strongly decreased N170 potentials associated with the appearance of visual perceptual alterations, including visual hallucinations. All of these effects were blocked by pretreatment with the 5-HT2A antagonist ketanserin, indicating that activation of 5-HT2A receptors by psilocybin profoundly modulates the neurophysiological and phenomenological indices of visual processing. Specifically, activation of 5-HT2A receptors may induce a processing mode in which stimulus-driven cortical excitation is overwhelmed by spontaneous neuronal excitation through the modulation of α oscillations. Furthermore, the observed reduction of N170 visual-evoked potentials may be a key mechanism underlying 5-HT2A receptor-mediated visual hallucinations. This change in N170 potentials may be important not only for psilocybin-induced states but also for understanding acute hallucinatory states seen in psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease.

Assessment of thought-shape fusion: initial validation of a short version of the trait thought-shape fusion scale.

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Coelho, Jennifer S; Baeyens, Céline; Purdon, Christine; Shafran, Roz; Roulin, Jean-Luc; Bouvard, Martine

2013-01-01

Thought-shape fusion (TSF) is a cognitive distortion that has been linked to eating pathology. Two studies were conducted to further explore this phenomenon and to establish the psychometric properties of a French short version of the TSF scale. In Study 1, students (n = 284) completed questionnaires assessing TSF and related psychopathology. In Study 2, the responses of women with eating disorders (n = 22) and women with no history of an eating disorder (n = 23) were compared. The French short version of the TSF scale has a unifactorial structure, with convergent validity with measures of eating pathology, and good internal consistency. Depression, eating pathology, body dissatisfaction, and thought-action fusion emerged as predictors of TSF. Individuals with eating disorders have higher TSF, and more clinically relevant food-related thoughts than do women with no history of an eating disorder. This research suggests that the shortened TSF scale can suitably measure this construct, and provides support for the notion that TSF is associated with eating pathology. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation add-on for the treatment of auditory hallucinations: a double-blind study.

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Rosenberg, Oded; Gersner, Roman; Klein, Limor Dinur; Kotler, Moshe; Zangen, Abraham; Dannon, Pinhas

2012-05-06

About 25% of schizophrenia patients with auditory hallucinations are refractory to pharmacotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy. We conducted a deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pilot study in order to evaluate the potential clinical benefit of repeated left temporoparietal cortex stimulation in these patients. The results were encouraging, but a sham-controlled study was needed to rule out a placebo effect. A total of 18 schizophrenic patients with refractory auditory hallucinations were recruited, from Beer Yaakov MHC and other hospitals outpatient populations. Patients received 10 daily treatment sessions with low-frequency (1 Hz for 10 min) deep TMS applied over the left temporoparietal cortex, using the H1 coil at the intensity of 110% of the motor threshold. Procedure was either real or sham according to patient randomization. Patients were evaluated via the Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale, Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms-Negative Symptoms, Clinical Global Impressions, and Quality of Life Questionnaire. In all, 10 patients completed the treatment (10 TMS sessions). Auditory hallucination scores of both groups improved; however, there was no statistical difference in any of the scales between the active and the sham treated groups. Low-frequency deep TMS to the left temporoparietal cortex using the protocol mentioned above has no statistically significant effect on auditory hallucinations or the other clinical scales measured in schizophrenic patients. Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT00564096.

Linkage and whole genome sequencing identify a locus on 6q25-26 for formal thought disorder and implicate MEF2A regulation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thygesen, Johan Hilge; Zambach, Sine Katharina; Ingason, Andrés

2015-01-01

Formal thought disorder is a major feature of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. It is heritable, found in healthy relatives of patients with schizophrenia and other mental disorders but knowledge of specific genetic factors is lacking. The aim of this study was to search for biological...

Familial risk for psychiatric disorders in military veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder with psychosis: a retrospective electronic record review.

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ÓConghaile, Aengus; Smedberg, Diane L; Shin, Ah L; DeLisi, Lynn E

2018-04-01

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a leading cause of morbidity among military veterans, with up to one-in-five individuals with PTSD also having psychotic symptoms. The current study was designed to determine the association between a known family history of psychiatric illness and risk of developing psychosis in patients with PTSD. Retrospective medical record review was performed on a cohort study of 414 consecutive individuals admitted to the Veteran Administration in 2014 with a diagnosis of military-related PTSD, but without a prior diagnosis of a psychotic disorder. PTSD with psychotic features was defined as the presence of hallucinations, paranoia, other delusions, thought insertion, withdrawal, broadcasting, and/or dissociative episodes. Overall, 22.9% of individuals with PTSD had psychotic symptoms. Having a first-degree relative with bipolar affective and with anxiety disorders was associated with an increased risk of PTSD with psychosis (odds ratio=2.01, 95% confidence interval: 1.01-4.45 and odds ratio=2.72, 95% confidence interval: 1.16-6.41, respectively). A family history of schizophrenia or depression was not associated with risk of developing psychotic features in patients with PTSD. In veterans with military-related PTSD, a familial vulnerability for bipolar disorder and anxiety disorders was associated with an increased risk of developing PTSD with psychotic features. These are preliminary data, given the limitations of a retrospective record review design. These results await replication in future prospective direct family interview studies.

Neurofeedback-Based Enhancement of Single-Trial Auditory Evoked Potentials: Treatment of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Schizophrenia.

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Rieger, Kathryn; Rarra, Marie-Helene; Diaz Hernandez, Laura; Hubl, Daniela; Koenig, Thomas

2018-03-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations depend on a broad neurobiological network ranging from the auditory system to language as well as memory-related processes. As part of this, the auditory N100 event-related potential (ERP) component is attenuated in patients with schizophrenia, with stronger attenuation occurring during auditory verbal hallucinations. Changes in the N100 component assumingly reflect disturbed responsiveness of the auditory system toward external stimuli in schizophrenia. With this premise, we investigated the therapeutic utility of neurofeedback training to modulate the auditory-evoked N100 component in patients with schizophrenia and associated auditory verbal hallucinations. Ten patients completed electroencephalography neurofeedback training for modulation of N100 (treatment condition) or another unrelated component, P200 (control condition). On a behavioral level, only the control group showed a tendency for symptom improvement in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale total score in a pre-/postcomparison ( t (4) = 2.71, P = .054); however, no significant differences were found in specific hallucination related symptoms ( t (7) = -0.53, P = .62). There was no significant overall effect of neurofeedback training on ERP components in our paradigm; however, we were able to identify different learning patterns, and found a correlation between learning and improvement in auditory verbal hallucination symptoms across training sessions ( r = 0.664, n = 9, P = .05). This effect results, with cautious interpretation due to the small sample size, primarily from the treatment group ( r = 0.97, n = 4, P = .03). In particular, a within-session learning parameter showed utility for predicting symptom improvement with neurofeedback training. In conclusion, patients with schizophrenia and associated auditory verbal hallucinations who exhibit a learning pattern more characterized by within-session aptitude may benefit from electroencephalography neurofeedback

Léon Marillier and the veridical hallucination in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century French psychology and psychopathology.

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Le Maléfan, Pascal; Sommer, Andreas

2015-12-01

Recent research on the professionalization of psychology at the end of the nineteenth century shows how objects of knowledge which appear illegitimate to us today shaped the institutionalization of disciplines. The veridical or telepathic hallucination was one of these objects, constituting a field both of division and exchange between nascent psychology and disciplines known as 'psychic sciences' in France, and 'psychical research' in the Anglo-American context. In France, Leon Marillier (1862-1901) was the main protagonist in discussions concerning the concept of the veridical hallucination, which gave rise to criticisms by mental specialists and psychopathologists. After all, not only were these hallucinations supposed to occur in healthy subjects, but they also failed to correspond to the Esquirolian definition of hallucinations through being corroborated by their representation of external, objective events. © The Author(s) 2015.

Braille alexia during visual hallucination in a blind man with selective calcarine atrophy.

Science.gov (United States)

Maeda, Kengo; Yasuda, Hitoshi; Haneda, Masakazu; Kashiwagi, Atsunori

2003-04-01

The case of a 56-year-old man who has been blind for 25 years due to retinal degeneration is herein described. The patient complained of elementary visual hallucination, during which it was difficult for him to read Braille. Brain magnetic resonance imaging showed marked atrophy of the bilateral striate cortex. Visual hallucination as a release phenomenon of the primary visual cortex has never been reported to cause alexia for Braille. The present case supports the results of recent functional imaging studies of the recruitment of striate and prestriate cortex for Braille reading.

Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation add-on for the treatment of auditory hallucinations: a double-blind study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rosenberg Oded

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background About 25% of schizophrenia patients with auditory hallucinations are refractory to pharmacotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy. We conducted a deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS pilot study in order to evaluate the potential clinical benefit of repeated left temporoparietal cortex stimulation in these patients. The results were encouraging, but a sham-controlled study was needed to rule out a placebo effect. Methods A total of 18 schizophrenic patients with refractory auditory hallucinations were recruited, from Beer Yaakov MHC and other hospitals outpatient populations. Patients received 10 daily treatment sessions with low-frequency (1 Hz for 10 min deep TMS applied over the left temporoparietal cortex, using the H1 coil at the intensity of 110% of the motor threshold. Procedure was either real or sham according to patient randomization. Patients were evaluated via the Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale, Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms-Negative Symptoms, Clinical Global Impressions, and Quality of Life Questionnaire. Results In all, 10 patients completed the treatment (10 TMS sessions. Auditory hallucination scores of both groups improved; however, there was no statistical difference in any of the scales between the active and the sham treated groups. Conclusions Low-frequency deep TMS to the left temporoparietal cortex using the protocol mentioned above has no statistically significant effect on auditory hallucinations or the other clinical scales measured in schizophrenic patients. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT00564096.

Effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors on thought-action fusion, metacognitions, and thought suppression in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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Besiroglu, Lutfullah; Çetinkaya, Nuralay; Selvi, Yavuz; Atli, Abdullah

2011-01-01

We aimed to assess whether cognitive processes change over time in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) receiving selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors without cognitive behavioral therapy and to investigate the factors associated with probable cognitive changes. During the 16 weeks of the study, 55 patients who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria for OCD received open-label treatment with sertraline (100-200 mg/d) or fluoxetine (40-80 mg/d) and were assessed using the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Thought-Action Fusion Scale (TAFS), Metacognitions Questionnaire (MCQ-30), and White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI). The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (P < .001), BDI (P < .001), TAFS morality (P < .005), MCQ-30 (P < .01), and WBSI (P < .005) scores at follow-up were significantly lower than baseline scores. When we excluded OCD patients with depressive disorder (n = 12), statistical significance in paired comparisons for MCQ and WBSI disappeared. Similarly, when OCD patients with religious obsessions (n = 16) were excluded, paired comparisons for MCQ and TAF morality were not statistically significant. Changes in BDI, TAFS morality, MCQ-30, and WBSI (P < .005) were significantly correlated with changes in severity of obsessions, but not that of compulsions. After controlling for the change in depression severity, significant correlations between changes in obsessive and cognitive scales did not continue to have statistical significance. The BDI changes (P < .05) significantly explained the changes in symptom severity in a linear regression model. Our findings suggest that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can change appraisals of obsessive intrusions via their effects on negative emotions. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Thought-action fusion in individuals with OCD symptoms.

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Amir, N; Freshman, M; Ramsey, B; Neary, E; Brigidi, B

2001-07-01

Rachman (Rachman, S. (1993). Obsessions, responsibility, and guilt. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 149-154) suggested that patients with OCD may interpret thoughts as having special importance, thus experiencing thought-action fusion (TAF). Shafran, Thordarson and Rachman (Shafran, R., Thordarson, D. S. & Rachman, S. (1996). Thought-action fusion in obsessive compulsive disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 710, 379-391) developed a questionnaire (TAF) and found that obsessives scored higher than non-obsessives on the measure. In the current study, we modified the TAF to include a scale that assessed the "likelihood of events happening to others" as well as ratings of the responsibility and cost for having these thoughts. Replicating previous findings, we found that individuals with OC symptoms gave higher ratings to the likelihood of negative events happening as a result of their negative thoughts. Individuals with OC symptoms also rated the likelihood that they would prevent harm by their positive thoughts higher than did individuals without OC symptoms. These results suggest that the role of thought-action fusion in OCs may extend to exaggerated beliefs about thoughts regarding the reduction of harm.

Cognitive insight and objective quality of life in people with schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations.

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Rathee, Ruchika; Luhrmann, Tanya M; Bhatia, Triptish; Deshpande, Smita N

2018-01-01

Poor cognitive insight in schizophrenia has been linked to delusions, hallucinations, and negative symptoms as well as to depressive/anxiety symptoms. Its impact on quality of life has been less studied, especially in schizophrenia subjects with ongoing auditory hallucinations. The Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS) and the Quality of Life Scale (QLS) were administered to subjects who met DSM IV criteria for schizophrenia after due translation and validation. All subjects reported ongoing auditory hallucinations at recruitment. Mean composite cognitive insight scores from participants (N = 60) (2.97 ± 2.649) were in the lower range as compared to published literature. Cognitive insight scores as well as self-reflectiveness subscale scores, but not self-certainty scores, correlated significantly with the QLS scores p insight, especially self-reflectiveness, may be linked to better quality of life. Self-reflectiveness could be a useful construct to address in psychotherapy to improve rehabilitation. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Prevalence and correlates of auditory vocal hallucinations in middle childhood

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bartels-Velthuis, A.A.; Jenner, J.A.; van de Willige, G.; van Os, J.; Wiersma, D.

Background Hearing voices occurs in middle childhood, but little is known about prevalence, aetiology and immediate consequences. Aims To investigate prevalence, developmental risk factors and behavioural correlates of auditory vocal hallucinations in 7- and 8-year-olds. Method Auditory vocal

Singular and combined effects of thought suppression and anxiety induction on frequency of threatening thoughts: An experimental investigation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cougle, J.R.; Smits, J.A.J.; Lee, H.J.; Powers, M.B.; Telch, M.J.

2005-01-01

The suppression of unwanted thoughts has been hypothesized to play an important role in the maintenance of clinical disorders such as OCD and PTSD. The present study sought to examine the singular and combined effects of thought suppression instructions and anxiety induction (as induced by an

Are Eating Disorders and Related Symptoms Risk Factors for Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors? A Meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, April R; Velkoff, Elizabeth A; Ribeiro, Jessica D; Franklin, Joseph

2018-02-14

This meta-analysis addressed whether eating disorders (EDs) are risk factors (i.e., longitudinal predictors) for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. We identified 2,611 longitudinal studies published through August 1, 2017. Inclusion required studies include at least one longitudinal analysis predicting suicide ideation, attempt, or death using an ED diagnosis and/or symptom. Fourteen studies (42 prediction cases) met criteria. Results indicated that clinically diagnosed EDs and disordered eating symptoms were significant but weak predictors of suicide attempts but not death. Effects remained weak when moderators were considered. By reviewing the methodological limitations of previous research, these results highlight avenues for future research. © 2018 The American Association of Suicidology.

Spanish version of the Thought-Action Fusion Questionnaire and its application in eating disorders.

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Jáuregui-Lobera, I; Santed-Germán, Ma; Bolaños-Ríos, P; Garrido-Casals, O

2013-01-01

The aims of the study were to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Thought-Action Fusion Questionnaire (TAF-SP), as well as to determine its validity by evaluating the relationship of the TAF-SP to different instruments. TWO GROUPS WERE STUDIED: one comprising 146 patients with eating disorders; and another a group of 200 students. THREE FACTORS WERE OBTAINED: TAF-Moral; TAF-Likelihood-others; and TAF-Likelihood-oneself. The internal consistency of the TAF-SP was determined by means of Cronbach's α coefficient, with values ranging between 0.84-0.95. The correlations with other instruments refected adequate validity. The three-factor structure was tested by means of a linear structural equation model, and the structure fit satisfactorily. Differences in TAF-SP scores between the diagnostic subgroups were also analyzed. The TAF-SP meets the psychometric requirements for measuring thought-action fusion and shows adequate internal consistency and validity.

Formal thought disorder, neuropsychology and insight in schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Barrera, Alvaro; McKenna, Peter J; Berrios, German E

2009-01-01

Information provided by patients with schizophrenia and their respective carers is used to study the descriptive psychopathology and neuropsychology of formal thought disorder (FTD). Relatively intellectually preserved schizophrenia patients (n = 31) exhibiting from no to severe positive FTD completed a self-report scale of FTD, a scale of insight as well as several tests of executive and semantic function. The patients' carers completed another scale of FTD to assess the patients' speech. FTD as self-reported by patients was significantly associated with the synonyms test performance and severity of the reality distortion dimension. FTD as assessed by a clinician and by the patients' carers was significantly associated with executive test performance and performance in a test of associative semantics. Overall insight was significantly associated with severity of the reality distortion dimension and graded naming test performance, but was not associated with self-reported FTD or severity of FTD as assessed by the clinician or carers. The self-reported experience of FTD has different clinical and neuropsychological correlates from those of FTD as assessed by clinicians and carers. The assessment of FTD by patients and carers used along with the clinician's assessment may further the study of this group of symptoms. 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Frequency, prevalence, incidence and risk factors associated with visual hallucinations in a sample of patients with Parkinson's disease: a longitudinal 4-year study.

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Gibson, G; Mottram, P G; Burn, D J; Hindle, J V; Landau, S; Samuel, M; Hurt, C S; Brown, R G; M Wilson, K C

2013-06-01

To examine the prevalence, incidence and risk factors associated with visual hallucinations (VHs) amongst people suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD). We recruited 513 patients with PD from movement disorder and PD clinics within three sites in the UK. Patients were interviewed using a series of standardised clinical rating scales at baseline, 12, 24 and 36 months. Data relating to VHs were collected using the North-East Visual Hallucinations Interview. Prevalence rates for VHs at each assessment were recorded. Associations were determined using multiple regression analysis. Cross-sectional prevalence rates for VHs at baseline, 12, 24 and 36 months indicated VHs in approximately 50% of patients. A cumulative frequency of 82.7% of cases at the end of the study period exhibited VHs. The incidence rate for VHs was 457 cases per 1000 population. Longer disease duration, greater impairment in activities of daily living and higher rates of anxiety were most commonly associated with VHs. No factors predictive of VHs could be ascertained. When examined longitudinally, VHs affect more patients than is commonly assumed in cross-sectional prevalence studies. Clinicians should routinely screen for VHs throughout the disease course. Disease duration, impairment in activities of daily living and anxiety presented as co-morbidities associated with VHs in PD, and therefore those presenting with VHs should be screened for anxiety disorder and vice versa. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Exploring the visual hallucinations of migraine aura: the tacit contribution of illustration.

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Schott, G D

2007-06-01

The visual aura of migraine is a subjective phenomenon, and what the migraineur experiences is necessarily inaccessible to others. Fortunately, however, the sufferer can occasionally reveal what is being seen by means of graphic representation, enabling an otherwise closed 'window' to be opened on the transiently dysfunctioning brain. This article explores the unique contribution that illustration has made to understanding mechanisms subserving the visual aura. The most revealing illustrations are those made by the very few scientists who have recorded and analysed the scotomas, and in particular the expanding fortification spectra, experienced during their migraine attacks. It is solely through illustrations such as these that the uniform nature of many of these hallucinations has been demonstrated. As a result, it follows that there is likely to be a similarly uniform repertoire of processes that generate the hallucinations in the occipital cortex. The precise form of the zigzags that comprise the fortification spectrum, their shimmering appearance, and in particular the speed of the peripheral spread, all of which are entirely dependent on graphic display for their elucidation, enable conclusions to be reached about a number of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms, including the involvement of spreading cortical depression, that likely occur. Illustration has been pivotal too in revealing uncommon and sometimes curious, if not bizarre, visual hallucinations, the forms of which suggest that extrastriate and temporal lobe involvement contributes to migraine aura in some instances. Illustration can also be valuable in differential diagnosis, depicting other forms of visual hallucination which result from a variety of non-migrainous causes. Illustration, particularly when made during the attack, provides an unusual, little used but powerful tool which uniquely allows the sufferer's subjective visual experiences to inform objective analysis. In turn, this

Association of religion with delusions and hallucinations in the context of schizophrenia: implications for engagement and adherence.

Science.gov (United States)

Gearing, Robin Edward; Alonzo, Dana; Smolak, Alex; McHugh, Katie; Harmon, Sherelle; Baldwin, Susanna

2011-03-01

The relationship of religion and schizophrenia is widely acknowledged, but often minimized by practitioners and under investigated by researchers. In striving to help fill this gap, this paper focuses on examining four aims: 1) how research has investigated the association between religiosity and schizophrenia; 2) how is religiosity associated with delusions and hallucinations; 3) what are the risk and protective factors associated with religiosity and schizophrenia; and 4) does religion influence treatment adherence with individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. A systematic literature search of PsycINFO and MEDLINE databases from January 1, 1980 through January 1, 2010 was conducted using the terms schizophrenia, schizoaffective, schizophreniform, psychotic disorder not otherwise specified (NOS) and religion, religiosity, spirituality, or faith. Seventy (n=70) original research studies were identified. Religion can act as both a risk and protective factor as it interacts with the schizophrenia symptoms of hallucination and delusions. Cultural influences tend to confound the association of religion and schizophrenia. Adherence to treatment has a mixed association with religiosity. The relationship between religion and schizophrenia may be of benefit to both clinicians and researchers through enhancing adherence to treatment, and enhancement of the protective aspects while minimizing associated risk. The relationship of religion and schizophrenia needs further research that is more nuanced and methodologically rigorous, specifically concerning its influence on engagement and adherence to treatment. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ego-syntonicity and ego-dystonicity of eating-related intrusive thoughts in patients with eating disorders.

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Roncero, María; Belloch, Amparo; Perpiñá, Conxa; Treasure, Janet

2013-06-30

The main objective of the present study was to analyse the role of the ego-dystonicity and ego-syntonicity of eating disorder intrusive thoughts (EDITs) in the genesis and maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). Participants were 98 female patients with EDs, 56 Spanish and 42 English (27.19±9.59 years; body mass index (BMI): 18.72±2.87). All of them completed the eating attitudes test, the Eating Attitudes Test, the Eating Intrusive Thoughts Inventory, the Ego-Dystonicity Questionnaire-Reduced version, and the Ego-Syntonicity Questionnaire. Patients indicated that their EDITs were rational and also undesirable and immoral, suggesting that EDITs are not fully ego-syntonic or ego-dystonic. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated no differences in ego-syntonicity and ego-dystonicity across ED subtypes. Path analyses were performed to investigate the mediating role of the EDITs' ego-syntonicity and ego-dystonicity in their interference, dysfunctional appraisals and control strategies. They showed, first, that the more interference an EDIT caused, the more ego-syntonic and the less ego-dystonic it was and, second, that when the EDITs were assessed as ego-syntonic, patients tried to do what they indicated, whereas when they were assessed as ego-dystonic, patients made efforts to neutralise them. Clinical implications for the conceptualisation and treatment of ED are discussed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thought insertion as a self-disturbance: An integration of predictive coding and phenomenological approaches

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Philipp Sterzer

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Current theories in the framework of hierarchical predictive coding propose that positive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as delusions and hallucinations, arise from an alteration in Bayesian inference, the term inference referring to a process by which learned predictions are used to infer probable causes of sensory data. However, for one particularly striking and frequent symptom of schizophrenia, thought insertion, no plausible account has been proposed in terms of the predictive-coding framework. Here we propose that thought insertion is due to an altered experience of thoughts as coming from nowhere, as is already indicated by the early 20th century phenomenological accounts by the early Heidelberg School of psychiatry. These accounts identified thought insertion as one of the self-disturbances (from German: Ichstörungen of schizophrenia and used mescaline as a model-psychosis in healthy individuals to explore the possible mechanisms. The early Heidelberg School (Gruhle, Mayer-Gross, Beringer first named and defined the self-disturbances, and proposed that thought insertion involves a disruption of the inner connectedness of thoughts and experiences, and a becoming sensory of those thoughts experienced as inserted. This account offers a novel way to integrate the phenomenology of thought insertion with the predictive coding framework. We argue that the altered experience of thoughts may be caused by a reduced precision of context-dependent predictions, relative to sensory precision. According to the principles of Bayesian inference, this reduced precision leads to increased prediction-error signals evoked by the neural activity that encodes thoughts. Thus, in analogy with the prediction-error related aberrant salience of external events that has been proposed previously, internal events such as thoughts (including volitions, emotions and memories can also be associated with increased prediction-error signaling and are thus imbued with

Increased amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus activation in schizophrenic patients with auditory hallucinations : An fMRI study using independent component analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jose Escarti, Maria; de la Iglesia-Vaya, Maria; Marti-Bonmati, Luis; Robles, Montserrat; Carbonell, Jose; Jose Lull, Juan; Garcia-Marti, Gracian; Vicente Manjon, Jose; Jesus Aguilar, Eduardo; Aleman, Andre; Sanjuan, Julio

Objective: Hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia have strong emotional connotations. Functional neuroimaging techniques have been widely used to study brain activity in patients with schizophrenia with hallucinations or emotional impairments. However, few of these Studies have investigated

Anxiety and its disorders as risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors: A meta-analytic review

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Bentley, Kate H.; Franklin, Joseph C.; Ribeiro, Jessica D.; Kleiman, Evan M.; Fox, Kathryn R.; Nock, Matthew K.

2016-01-01

Suicidal thoughts and behaviors are highly prevalent public health problems with devastating consequences. There is an urgent need to improve our understanding of risk factors for suicide to identify effective intervention targets. The aim of this meta-analysis was to examine the magnitude and clinical utility of anxiety and its disorders as risk factors for suicide ideation, attempts, and deaths. We conducted a literature search through December 2014; of the 65 articles meeting our inclusion criteria, we extracted 180 cases in which an anxiety-specific variable was used to longitudinally predict a suicide-related outcome. Results indicated that anxiety is a statistically significant, yet weak, predictor of suicide ideation (OR=1.49, 95% CI: 1.18, 1.88) and attempts (OR=1.64, 95% CI: 1.47, 1.83), but not deaths (OR=1.01, 95% CI: 0.87, 1.18). The strongest associations were observed for PTSD. Estimates were reduced after accounting for publication bias, and diagnostic accuracy analyses indicated acceptable specificity but poor sensitivity. Overall, the extant literature suggests that anxiety and its disorders, at least when these constructs are measured in isolation and as trait-like constructs, are relatively weak predictors of suicidal thoughts and behaviors over long follow-up periods. Implications for future research priorities are discussed. PMID:26688478

Hypnotic susceptibility and affective states in bipolar I and II disorders.

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Zhang, Bingren; Wang, Jiawei; Zhu, Qisha; Ma, Guorong; Shen, Chanchan; Fan, Hongying; Wang, Wei

2017-11-09

Highly hypnotizable individuals have impaired executive function, elevated motor impulsivity and increased emotional sensitivity, which are sometimes found in bipolar disorder patients. It is then reasonable to assume that certain aspects of hypnotic susceptibility differ with the types of bipolar disorder. The Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form C (SHSS:C) test, the Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ), the Hypomanic Checklist-32 (HCL-32) and the Plutchick-van Praag Depression Inventory (PVP) were applied to 62 patients with bipolar I disorder, 33 bipolar II disorder, and 120 healthy volunteers. The passing rate of the SHSS:C 'Moving hands apart' item was higher in bipolar I patients than in controls, whereas for 'Mosquito hallucination' the rate was lower. Bipolar I and II patients scored significantly higher on MDQ, HCL-32 and PVP scales than controls. The passing rates of 'Mosquito hallucination' in controls, 'Arm rigidity' in bipolar I, and 'Age regression' in bipolar II predicted the respective MDQ scores. In contrast to cognitive suggestions, bipolar I patients followed motor suggestions more often under hypnosis. Furthermore, both bipolar disorder patients and healthy volunteers demonstrated associations between mania levels and certain hypnotic susceptibility features. Our study aids in better understanding the altered conscious states in bipolar disorders, and encourages the use of related psychotherapy for these patients.

Synesthetic hallucinations induced by psychedelic drugs in a congenitally blind man.

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Dell'Erba, Sara; Brown, David J; Proulx, Michael J

2018-04-01

This case report offers rare insights into crossmodal responses to psychedelic drug use in a congenitally blind (CB) individual as a form of synthetic synesthesia. BP's personal experience provides us with a unique report on the psychological and sensory alterations induced by hallucinogenic drugs, including an account of the absence of visual hallucinations, and a compelling look at the relationship between LSD induced synesthesia and crossmodal correspondences. The hallucinatory experiences reported by BP are of particular interest in light of the observation that rates of psychosis within the CB population are extremely low. The phenomenology of the induced hallucinations suggests that experiences acquired through other means, might not give rise to "visual" experiences in the phenomenological sense, but instead gives rise to novel experiences in the other functioning senses. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Relevance of the Thought-Shape Fusion Trait Questionnaire for healthy women and women presenting symptoms of eating disorders and mixed mental disorders.

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Wyssen, Andrea; Debbeler, Luka J; Meyer, Andrea H; Coelho, Jennifer S; Humbel, Nadine; Schuck, Kathrin; Lennertz, Julia; Messerli-Bürgy, Nadine; Trier, Stephan N; Isenschmid, Bettina; Milos, Gabriella; Flury, Hanspeter; Schneider, Silvia; Munsch, Simone

2018-03-23

Thought-shape fusion (TSF) describes the experience of marked concerns about body weight/shape, feelings of fatness, the perception of weight gain, and the impression of moral wrongdoing after thinking about eating fattening/forbidden foods. This study sets out to evaluate the short version of the TSF trait questionnaire (TSF). The sample consists of 315 healthy control women, 244 women with clinical and subthreshold eating disorders, and 113 women with mixed mental disorders (mixed). The factor structure of the TSF questionnaire was examined using exploratory and subsequent confirmatory factor analyses. The questionnaire distinguishes between a Concept scale and a Clinical Impact scale. However, a lack of measurement invariances refers to significant differences between groups in terms of factor loadings, thresholds, and residuals, which questions cross-group validity. Results indicate that the concept is understood differently in the 3 groups and refers to the suitability of the questionnaire primarily for individuals presenting with symptoms of eating disorders. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The prognostic value of formal thought disorder following first episode psychosis.

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Roche, Eric; Lyne, John; O'Donoghue, Brian; Segurado, Ricardo; Behan, Caragh; Renwick, Laoise; Fanning, Felicity; Madigan, Kevin; Clarke, Mary

2016-12-01

Formal thought disorder (FTD) is associated with poor outcome in established psychotic illnesses and it can be assessed as a categorical or dimensional variable. However, its influence on functional outcome and hospitalisation patterns in early psychosis has not been investigated. We evaluated the relationship between FTD and these outcomes in a first episode psychosis (FEP) sample. A mixed diagnostic FEP cohort was recruited through an Early Intervention in Psychosis Service in Ireland. Participants were assessed at initial presentation and one year later with the MIRECC GAF to evaluate social and occupational functioning domains. Disorganisation (disFTD), verbosity (verFTD) and poverty (povFTD) dimensions of FTD were examined at both time points, as well as a unitary FTD construct. Analyses were controlled for demographic, clinical and treatment variables. DisFTD was the only FTD dimension associated with functional outcome, specifically social functioning, on multivariate analysis (beta=0.13, P<0.05). The unitary FTD construct was not associated with functional outcome. DisFTD at FEP presentation predicted a greater number of hospitalisations (adjusted beta=0.24, P<0.001) and prolonged inpatient admission (adjusted OR=1.08, 95% CI 1.02-1.15, P<0.05) following FEP. Longitudinal and dimensional evaluation of FTD has a clinical utility that is distinct from a cross-sectional or unitary assessment. Dimensions of FTD may map onto different domains of functioning. These findings are supportive of some of the changes in DSM-V with an emphasis on longitudinal and dimensional appraisal of psychopathology. Communication disorders may be considered a potential target for intervention in psychotic disorders. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Psychopathology and Thought Suppression: A Quantitative Review

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Magee, Joshua C.; Harden, K. Paige; Teachman, Bethany A.

2012-01-01

Recent theories of psychopathology have suggested that thought suppression intensifies the persistence of intrusive thoughts, and proposed that difficulty with thought suppression may differ between groups with and without psychopathology. The current meta-analytic review evaluates empirical evidence for difficulty with thought suppression as a function of the presence and specific type of psychopathology. Based on theoretical proposals from the psychopathology literature, diagnosed and analogue samples were expected to show greater recurrence of intrusive thoughts during thought suppression attempts than non-clinical samples. However, results showed no overall differences in the recurrence of thoughts due to thought suppression between groups with and without psychopathology. There was, nevertheless, variation in the recurrence of thoughts across different forms of psychopathology, including relatively less recurrence during thought suppression for samples with symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, compared to non-clinical samples. However, these differences were typically small and provided only mixed support for existing theories. Implications for cognitive theories of intrusive thoughts are discussed, including proposed mechanisms underlying thought suppression. PMID:22388007

Is Seeing Believing? The Process of Change During Cognitive-behavioural Therapy for Distressing Visual Hallucinations.

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Wilson, Rea; Collerton, Daniel; Freeston, Mark; Christodoulides, Thomas; Dudley, Robert

2016-07-01

People with psychosis often report distressing visual hallucinations (VH). In contrast to auditory hallucinations, there is little empirical evidence on effective interventions. The effectiveness of a novel-focused cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) intervention for VH was explored using a multiple baseline single case design with four participants. Change to individual appraisals, emotional and behavioural responses to VH were measured with daily diaries kept throughout the baseline and intervention phase lasting up to 16 sessions. Maintenance of change was tracked during a follow-up period of one month. Changes in appraisals, distress and response in accordance with the theory was evident in two out of four of the cases. However, change occurred within the baseline phase that limited the conclusions that change could be attributed to CBT alone. There was some evidence of clinically significant change and reliable change for two out of four of the cases at follow-up on one of the standardized psychiatric assessments. The research reported here has theoretical and clinical implications for refinement of the model and interventions for distressing VH. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Distressing visual hallucinations (VH) are a relatively common symptom of psychosis. Visual hallucinations seem to be associated with greater impairment and disability. We have no specific treatment for VH. The appraisal of the visual experience and the behavioural response is important in maintaining the distress. Cognitive-behavioural therapy for VH at present has limited value. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Relationships between thought-action fusion, thought suppression and obsessive-compulsive symptoms: a structural equation modeling approach.

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Rassin, E; Muris, P; Schmidt, H; Merckelbach, H

2000-09-01

Research has shown that there are strong similarities in content between the obsessions and compulsions that characterize obsessive-compulsive disorder and nonclinical obsessions and compulsions. However, clinical and nonclinical obsessions and compulsions do differ with respect to characteristics like frequency, intensity, discomfort and elicited resistance. Two separate concepts have been invoked to explain how normal obsessions and compulsions may develop into clinical phenomena. First, it is suggested that thought-action fusion (TAF) contributes to obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Second, thought suppression may intensify obsessive-compulsive symptoms due to its paradoxical effect on intrusive thoughts. Although both phenomena have been found to contribute to obsessive-compulsive symptoms, possible interactions between these two have never been investigated. The current study explored how TAF and thought suppression interact in the development of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Undergraduate psychology students (N = 173) completed questionnaires pertaining to TAF, thought suppression and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Covariances between the scores on these questionnaires were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling. Results suggest that TAF triggers thought suppression, while thought suppression, in turn, promotes obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

Use of media technology to enhance the learning of student nurses in regards to auditory hallucinations.

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Mawson, Kerry

2014-04-01

The aim of this study was to determine if simulation aided by media technology contributes towards an increase in knowledge, empathy, and a change in attitudes in regards to auditory hallucinations for nursing students. A convenience sample of 60 second-year undergraduate nursing students from an Australian university was invited to be part of the study. A pre-post-test design was used, with data analysed using a paired samples t-test to identify pre- and post-changes on nursing students' scores on knowledge of auditory hallucinations. Nine of the 11 questions reported statistically-significant results. The remaining two questions highlighted knowledge embedded within the curriculum, with therapeutic communication being the core work of mental health nursing. The implications for practice are that simulation aided by media technology increases the knowledge of students in regards to auditory hallucinations. © 2013 Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc.

IMP-SPECT at patients with hallucinations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Podreka, I.; Mamoli, B.; Lesch, O.; Suess, E.; Wimberger, D.; Mayr, N.; Havelec, L.; Mueller, C.; Steiner, M.; Deecke, L.

1986-01-01

IMP-SPECT was performed in 14 normal volunteers. A 'regional index=RI' of tracer distribution was calculated for 18 regions in each hemisphere RI=(cts/voxel ROI)/(mean cts/voxel of all ROI's). 30 seizure patients (E) and 12 patients with acoustic, partialy also visual hallucinations (H) were investigated. Regions were defined as hypo- or hyperperfused if the RI exceeded the value of the corresponding normal-RI +- 2 std. EEG was recorded in all (E). 93.3% of EEG-findings were abnormal, 50% showed a focus, 46.7% paroxysmal activity. SPECT detected in 93.3% of (E) hypoperfused regions, mostly located in the temporal lobe. All (H) had decreased rCBF, predominantly in the frontal cortex. ANOVA and t-test revealed significant RI-differences in the frontal lobe, both hippocampi, right and left inferior occipital cortex, and right anterior basal ganglia. (H) had lower RI's in frontal lobes, higher RI's in both hippocampal regions as well as inferior occipital regions and anterior basal ganglia Differences between (E) and (H) were found in the frontal lobe ((H)sub(→)), right superior temporal region ((H)sup(→)), left hippocampus ((H)sup(→)), both inferior occipital regions ((H)sup(→)) and right anterior basal ganglia ((H)sup(→)). The study shows that by means of IMP-SPECT hypo- and hyperperfused areas can be detected in the hemispheres of (E) and (H), corresponding to disturbed brain function. Higher hippocampal CBF in (E) and (H) may be related to the role of this limbic structure in generation of seizures and psychotic states. Hallucinations are associated with increased CBF in the right temporal and associative visual cortex. (Author)

"Capgras" Delusions Involving Belongings, Not People, and Evolving Visual Hallucinations Associated with Occipital Lobe Seizures.

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Lilly, Brandon; Maynard, Erika; Melvin, Kelly; Holroyd, Suzanne

2018-01-01

Capgras syndrome is characterized by the delusional belief that a familiar person has been replaced by a visually similar imposter or replica. Rarely, the delusional focus may be objects rather than people. Numerous etiologies have been described for Capgras to include seizures. Similarly, visual hallucinations, both simple and complex, can occur secondary to seizure activity. We present, to our knowledge, the first reported case of visual hallucinations and Capgras delusions for objects that developed secondary to new onset occipital lobe epilepsy. We then discuss the possible underlying neurologic mechanisms responsible for the symptomatology.

Seduction as a Game of Reversals and Death. Understanding Jean Baudrillard’s Seduction through Patricia Duncker’s Hallucinating Foucault (La seducción como un juego de inversiones y muerte. Comprender Seduction, de Jean Baudrillard mediante Hallucinating Foucault, de Patricia Duncker

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Alejandra Giangiulio Lobo

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Se estudia la teoría de la seducción de Jean Baudrillard mediante el análisis de la novela Hallucinating Foucault, de Patricia Duncker, para mostrar que el proceso de lectura es un acto seductor y un juego obsesivo entre lector y escritor. Estas características se comprueban con la inversión de las jerarquías presentes, del cambio de roles y de una muerte literal y metafórica. Hallucinating Foucault muestra la complejidad entre lector y escritor, vistos como compañeros de juego, parte de una relación que respectivamente alimenta su imaginación y su creatividad. Jean Baudrillard’s theory of seduction is studied by the analysis of the novel Hallucinating Foucault, by Patricia Duncker, to verify that the process of reading is a seductive act and a compulsive game among readers and writers. These features are shown by the reversal of the hierarchies present, the changing of roles and a literal and metaphorical death. Thus, Hallucinating Foucault shows the complexity between readers and writers, seen as playmates and partners that mutually feed one another’s imagination and creativity.

Dissociative Disorders in Children: Behavioral Profiles and Problems.

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Putnam, Frank W.

1993-01-01

Clinical research has established a connection between childhood trauma and the development of dissociative disorders in adults. Pathological dissociation produces a range of symptoms and behaviors such as amnesias, rapid shifts in mood and behavior, and auditory and visual hallucinations. Many of these symptoms are misdiagnosed as attention,…

Cognitive biases and auditory verbal hallucinations in healthy and clinical individuals

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Daalman, K.; Sommer, I. E. C.; Derks, E. M.; Peters, E. R.

2013-01-01

Background. Several cognitive biases are related to psychotic symptoms, including auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). It remains unclear whether these biases differ in voice-hearers with and without a 'need-for-care'. Method. A total of 72 healthy controls, 72 healthy voice-hearers and 72 clinical

Reduced neuronal activity in language-related regions after transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy for auditory verbal hallucinations.

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Kindler, Jochen; Homan, Philipp; Jann, Kay; Federspiel, Andrea; Flury, Richard; Hauf, Martinus; Strik, Werner; Dierks, Thomas; Hubl, Daniela

2013-03-15

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a novel therapeutic approach, used in patients with pharmacoresistant auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). To investigate the neurobiological effects of TMS on AVH, we measured cerebral blood flow with pseudo-continuous magnetic resonance-arterial spin labeling 20 ± 6 hours before and after TMS treatment. Thirty patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were investigated. Fifteen patients received a 10-day TMS treatment to the left temporoparietal cortex, and 15 received the standard treatment. The stimulation location was chosen according to an individually determined language region determined by a functional magnetic resonance imaging language paradigm, which identified the sensorimotor language area, area Spt (sylvian parietotemporal), as the target region. TMS-treated patients showed positive clinical effects, which were indicated by a reduction in AVH scores (p ≤ .001). Cerebral blood flow was significantly decreased in the primary auditory cortex (p ≤ .001), left Broca's area (p ≤ .001), and cingulate gyrus (p ≤ .001). In control subjects, neither positive clinical effects nor cerebral blood flow decreases were detected. The decrease in cerebral blood flow in the primary auditory cortex correlated with the decrease in AVH scores (p ≤ .001). TMS reverses hyperactivity of language regions involved in the emergence of AVH. Area Spt acts as a gateway to the hallucination-generating cerebral network. Successful therapy corresponded to decreased cerebral blood flow in the primary auditory cortex, supporting its crucial role in triggering AVH and contributing to the physical quality of the false perceptions. Copyright © 2013 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Abnormal synchrony and effective connectivity in patients with schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations

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de la Iglesia-Vaya, Maria; Escartí, Maria José; Molina-Mateo, Jose; Martí-Bonmatí, Luis; Gadea, Marien; Castellanos, Francisco Xavier; Aguilar García-Iturrospe, Eduardo J.; Robles, Montserrat; Biswal, Bharat B.; Sanjuan, Julio

2014-01-01

Auditory hallucinations (AH) are the most frequent positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Hallucinations have been related to emotional processing disturbances, altered functional connectivity and effective connectivity deficits. Previously, we observed that, compared to healthy controls, the limbic network responses of patients with auditory hallucinations differed when the subjects were listening to emotionally charged words. We aimed to compare the synchrony patterns and effective connectivity of task-related networks between schizophrenia patients with and without AH and healthy controls. Schizophrenia patients with AH (n = 27) and without AH (n = 14) were compared with healthy participants (n = 31). We examined functional connectivity by analyzing correlations and cross-correlations among previously detected independent component analysis time courses. Granger causality was used to infer the information flow direction in the brain regions. The results demonstrate that the patterns of cortico-cortical functional synchrony differentiated the patients with AH from the patients without AH and from the healthy participants. Additionally, Granger-causal relationships between the networks clearly differentiated the groups. In the patients with AH, the principal causal source was an occipital–cerebellar component, versus a temporal component in the patients without AH and the healthy controls. These data indicate that an anomalous process of neural connectivity exists when patients with AH process emotional auditory stimuli. Additionally, a central role is suggested for the cerebellum in processing emotional stimuli in patients with persistent AH. PMID:25379429

Hallucinations and delusions: the price we pay for our creative brains

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frith, Christopher

2008-01-01

there is no difference in principle between perceptions and beliefs: both depend upon a process of updating models of the world on the basis of new evidence with Bayes’ theorem providing the underlying computational mechanism. Many hallucinations and delusions can be explained as the consequence of faulty evidence being...... used to generate models of the world. The mechanism by which we use evidence to discover about the physical world of objects can also be used to discover about the mental world of ideas in the minds of others. However, when modelling other people’s minds the process becomes more complex, since......, in a true interaction, each person in the dialogue is trying to model the mind of the other. For success in such interactions it is not sufficient to model what is in the other’s mind. We must also model what the other thinks is in our mind (closing the loop). The hallucinations and delusions associated...

Charles Bonnet syndrome: characteristics of its visual hallucinations and differential diagnosis

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Thiago Cardoso Vale

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Objective: To present an eight-case serie of patients with Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS. Method: All patients were initially evaluated by an ophthalmologist and then submitted to a neurologic evaluation with exclusion of alternative psychiatric and neurologic diagnoses. Results: Five patients were male (62.5% and the mean age was 52.3+16.0 years. Two patients suffered from severe myopia and glaucoma, three had retinitis pigmentosa, one had anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, one had age-related macular degeneration and one had toxoplasmic retinochoroiditis. Mean visual acuity in the right eye was 1,12 logMAR and in the left eye 0.57 logMAR. A mean delay of 41.7 months occurred until diagnosis. All hallucinations were complexes and mostly ocurred on a weekly-basis (62.5% and lasted for seconds (87.5%. Conclusions: Physicians who care for low vision patients should be aware of CBS and appropriately diagnose its hallucinations after exclusion of psychiatric and neurologic diseases.

Symptoms of psychosis in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder: A comparison of African Americans and Caucasians in the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort.

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Perlman, Greg; Kotov, Roman; Fu, Jinmiao; Bromet, Evelyn J; Fochtmann, Laura J; Medeiros, Helena; Pato, Michele T; Pato, Carlos N

2016-06-01

Several studies have reported differences between African Americans and Caucasians in relative proportion of psychotic symptoms and disorders, but whether this reflects racial bias in the assessment of psychosis is unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the distribution of psychotic symptoms and potential bias in symptoms assessed via semi-structured interview using a cohort of 3,389 African American and 5,692 Caucasian participants who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or bipolar disorder. In this cohort, the diagnosis of schizophrenia was relatively more common, and the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder-bipolar type was less relatively common, among African Americans than Caucasians. With regard to symptoms, relatively more African Americans than Caucasians endorsed hallucinations and delusions symptoms, and this pattern was striking among cases diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizoaffective-bipolar disorder. In contrast, the relative endorsement of psychotic symptoms was more similar among cases diagnosed with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder-depressed type. Differential item function analysis revealed that African Americans with mild psychosis over-endorsed "hallucinations in any modality" and under-endorsed "widespread delusions" relative to Caucasians. Other symptoms did not show evidence of racial bias. Thus, racial bias in assessment of psychotic symptoms does not appear to explain differences in the proportion of symptoms between Caucasians and African Americans. Rather, this may reflect ascertainment bias, perhaps indicative of a disparity in access to services, or differential exposure to risk factors for psychosis by race. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Treatment of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome and Verbal Auditory Hallucinations Using Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation : A Case Report with fMRI Findings

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blom, Jan Dirk; Looijestijn, Jasper; Goekoop, Rutger; Diederen, Kelly M. J.; Rijkaart, Anne-Marije; Slotema, Christina W.; Sommer, Iris E. C.

2011-01-01

Background: Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS) is a rare cluster of CNS symptoms characterized by visual distortions (i.e. metamorphopsias), body image distortions, time distortions, and deja experiences. Verbal auditory hallucinations (VAHs) are the most prevalent type of hallucination in adults

Targeted neural network interventions for auditory hallucinations: Can TMS inform DBS?

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Taylor, Joseph J; Krystal, John H; D'Souza, Deepak C; Gerrard, Jason Lee; Corlett, Philip R

2017-09-29

The debilitating and refractory nature of auditory hallucinations (AH) in schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders has stimulated investigations into neuromodulatory interventions that target the aberrant neural networks associated with them. Internal or invasive forms of brain stimulation such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) are currently being explored for treatment-refractory schizophrenia. The process of developing and implementing DBS is limited by symptom clustering within psychiatric constructs as well as a scarcity of causal tools with which to predict response, refine targeting or guide clinical decisions. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), an external or non-invasive form of brain stimulation, has shown some promise as a therapeutic intervention for AH but remains relatively underutilized as an investigational probe of clinically relevant neural networks. In this editorial, we propose that TMS has the potential to inform DBS by adding individualized causal evidence to an evaluation processes otherwise devoid of it in patients. Although there are significant limitations and safety concerns regarding DBS, the combination of TMS with computational modeling of neuroimaging and neurophysiological data could provide critical insights into more robust and adaptable network modulation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cataplexy in anxious patients: is subclinical narcolepsy underrecognized in anxiety disorders?

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Flosnik, Dawn L; Cortese, Bernadette M; Uhde, Thomas W

2009-06-01

Excessive daytime sleepiness, hypnagogic-hypnopompic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, and cataplexy are symptoms associated with narcolepsy. Recent findings indicate that anxiety disorders also are associated with excessive daytime sleepiness, hypnagogic-hypnopompic hallucinations, and sleep paralysis. These observations suggest a possible relationship between anxiety disorders and narcolepsy. Cataplexy is considered the most specific symptom of narcolepsy, but its association with anxiety disorders is unknown. This preliminary investigation examined the prevalence and types of cataplexy in patients with primary anxiety disorders. Sex- and age-matched patients with anxiety disorders (N = 33) and healthy volunteers (N = 33) were assessed on standardized and validated measures of subjective sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) and subclinical narcoleptic events in the form of cataplexy (Stanford Center for Narcolepsy Revised Sleep Inventory). Patients were recruited from October 2006 to January 2007 from 2 programs of the Penn State Behavioral Health Clinic. Anxiety disorder patients as a group reported poorer sleep quality and endorsed a larger number of different types of situations (e.g., surprise, embarrassment) associated with cataplectic events. Among anxious patients, 33.3% (11 of 33) endorsed events specific for classic cataplexy, as opposed to 9.1% (3 of 33) of healthy volunteers (chi(2) = 5.80, p = .016). Our preliminary findings suggest that anxiety disorders are associated with increased rates of cataplexy. Future research is indicated to elucidate the relationship between anxiety and narcolepsy, with a particular focus on panic and generalized anxiety disorders. Copyright 2009 Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.

Shared Psychotic Disorder (Folie à Deux in Turkey

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Buket Cinemre

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Shared psychotic disorder or folie à deux is a rare and relatively unknown syndrome. Large case series are needed to find out and clarify the etiological factors and the phenomenology of shared psychotic disorder by comparing the cases from different society and cultures. In this study, we reviewed all reported cases of shared psychotic disorder that had been published or presented in Turkey since 1962. To reach this aim, we have searched Pubmed/Medline, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Ulakbim Turkish Medical Index, Turkish Psychiatric Index databases for published records originating from Turkey. We have also manually searched poster abstract books of congresses held in Turkey between 1962 and 2009. All cases eligible for inclusion into this study have been evaluated one by one and grouped as primary or secondary cases. The features of these cases were investigated for a number of variables including age, sex, educational level, occupation, the presence of shared delusion and hallucinations, diagnosis, management, onset of illness, family history, IQ, social isolation, the nature of the relationship and classification system used for diagnosis. The results have showed that the syndrome is more frequently observed among women, within same family members and between sisters. Social isolation was the most common risk factor in these patients and most patients shared hallucinations with their partners along with their delusions. Several secondary cases required antipsychotic drugs for the treatment of their symptoms. Though these features were inline with literature findings, the present findings from Turkish population were different from previous studies with regards to the presence of olfactory hallucinations, absence of grandiose delusions and the number of affected family members. The results mostly supported the challenges and discussions in western countries. To understand this most pathological form of interpersonal relationships

Superior Sagittal Sinus Thrombosis Presenting with Hallucinations in the Puerperium: A Case Report

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Zylfije Hundozi

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis is an uncommon cause of stroke presenting with varied presentation patterns. We report a case of a 21-year-old woman with superior sagittal sinus (SSS thrombosis (SSST developing after childbirth, presenting with visual hallucinations, severe headache, and tonic-clonic seizures. Time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography (TOF-MRA demonstrated the presence of thrombus in SSS. She was treated with low molecular weight heparin (LMWH followed by warfarin. She had excellent recovery a few weeks after admission and was regularly followed up. Although this condition can be presented with different neurological symptoms, it does not typically present with hallucinations. We suggest that CSVT should be suspected even when a patient presents with an atypical picture in a category of patients at higher risk.

“Capgras” Delusions Involving Belongings, Not People, and Evolving Visual Hallucinations Associated with Occipital Lobe Seizures

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Brandon Lilly

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Capgras syndrome is characterized by the delusional belief that a familiar person has been replaced by a visually similar imposter or replica. Rarely, the delusional focus may be objects rather than people. Numerous etiologies have been described for Capgras to include seizures. Similarly, visual hallucinations, both simple and complex, can occur secondary to seizure activity. We present, to our knowledge, the first reported case of visual hallucinations and Capgras delusions for objects that developed secondary to new onset occipital lobe epilepsy. We then discuss the possible underlying neurologic mechanisms responsible for the symptomatology.

[A Clinical Case of Grief Hallucination through the Mourning Work Normal Grief and Spiritual Care].

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Kurotori, Isaku; Kato, Satoshi

2015-01-01

Auditory or visual hallucinations of a deceased person are well known in the normal course of the bereavement process. According to DSM-5, this symptom is included in the associated features supporting diagnosis of persistent complex bereavement disorder. In Japan, however, little is known about these hallucinatory experiences during grieving, and few reports on their prevalence are available. Here, we have reported a clinical case of such experiences following the loss of a spouse. A 66-year-old patient presented to the outpatient department with insomnia after her husband's death. She was preoccupied with a sense of loss and absolute loneliness. One day, she confessed to regularly encountering her husband's ghost at night; the ghost was distinguishable from a dream and provided the bereaved wife with some degree of comfort. The appearances lasted for 15 months and occurred several times a week without disturbing her social functioning. She gradually became aware that her husband was returning from the spirit world to give her solace. Her treatment was focused on resolving her conflicting feelings concerning her grief at his death and her relief at his no longer suffering from disease. While accepting her experiences, she started to review the days they spent together and appreciated his attachment. Therefore she completed the work of mourning and the ghost no longer appeared. One year after the departure of the ghost, she still attends the hospital regularly and there has been no recurrence. A reconstruction of her internal world leads us to conclude that the support of normal grief with such hallucinations prevents the intense experience of loss from generating pathological grief. Furthermore, we suggest reconsidering the importance of the mourning work and the inclusion of both the bereaved and deceased person in the medical context.

How does thought-action fusion relate to responsibility attitudes and thought suppression to aggravate the obsessive-compulsive symptoms?

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Altın, Müjgan; Gençöz, Tülin

2011-01-01

Comprehensive cognitive theories of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) propose that clinical obsessions and compulsions arise from specific sorts of dysfunctional beliefs and appraisals, such as inflated sense of responsibility, thought-action fusion (TAF), and thought suppression. The present study aimed to examine the mediator roles of responsibility and thought suppression between TAF and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Specifically, it aimed to explore the relative effects of TAF factors (i.e. morality and likelihood) on inflated sense of responsibility and on thought suppression to increase the obsessive qualities of intrusions. Two hundred and eighty-three Turkish undergraduate students completed a battery of measures on responsibility, thought suppression, TAF, OC symptoms, and depression. A series of hierarchical regression analyses, where depressive symptoms were controlled for, indicated that TAF-morality and TAF-likelihood follow different paths toward OC symptoms. Although TAF-morality associated with inflated sense of responsibility, TAF-likelihood associated with thought suppression efforts, and in turn these factors increased OC symptoms. These findings provide support for the critical role of sense of responsibility and thought suppression between the relationship of TAF and OC symptoms. Findings were discussed in line with the literature.

Visual Hallucinations in a Patient with Horner's Syndrome Secondary to Internal Carotid Dissection

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Singh, Amardeep; Mortzos, Panteleimon; Sørensen, Torben Lykke

2014-01-01

A 67-year-old female presented with post-ganglionic Horner's syndrome. In addition to the classical symptoms of Horner's syndrome, the patient reported experiencing frightening complex visual and auditory hallucinations on two different occasions. Magnetic resonance angiography of the cerebrum...

Use of transcranial direct current stimulation for the treatment of auditory hallucinations of schizophrenia – a systematic review

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Pondé PH

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Pedro H Pondé,1 Eduardo P de Sena,2 Joan A Camprodon,3 Arão Nogueira de Araújo,2 Mário F Neto,4 Melany DiBiasi,5 Abrahão Fontes Baptista,6,7 Lidia MVR Moura,8 Camila Cosmo2,3,6,9,10 1Dynamics of Neuromusculoskeletal System Laboratory, Bahiana School of Medicine and Public Health, 2Postgraduate Program in Interactive Process of Organs and Systems, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil; 3Laboratory for Neuropsychiatry and Neuromodulation and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Clinical Service, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; 4Scientific Training Center Department, School of Medicine of Bahia, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil; 5Neuromodulation Center, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; 6Functional Electrostimulation Laboratory, Biomorphology Department, 7Postgraduate Program on Medicine and Human Health, School of Medicine, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil; 8Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; 9Center for Technological Innovation in Rehabilitation, Federal University of Bahia, 10Bahia State Health Department (SESAB, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil Introduction: Auditory hallucinations are defined as experiences of auditory perceptions in the absence of a provoking external stimulus. They are the most prevalent symptoms of schizophrenia with high capacity for chronicity and refractoriness during the course of disease. The transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS – a safe, portable, and inexpensive neuromodulation technique – has emerged as a promising treatment for the management of auditory hallucinations. Objective: The aim of this study is to analyze the level of evidence in the literature available for the use of tDCS as a treatment for auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. Methods: A systematic review was performed

The 5-HT2A/1A agonist psilocybin disrupts modal object completion associated with visual hallucinations.

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Kometer, Michael; Cahn, B Rael; Andel, David; Carter, Olivia L; Vollenweider, Franz X

2011-03-01

Recent findings suggest that the serotonergic system and particularly the 5-HT2A/1A receptors are implicated in visual processing and possibly the pathophysiology of visual disturbances including hallucinations in schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. To investigate the role of 5-HT2A/1A receptors in visual processing the effect of the hallucinogenic 5-HT2A/1A agonist psilocybin (125 and 250 μg/kg vs. placebo) on the spatiotemporal dynamics of modal object completion was assessed in normal volunteers (n = 17) using visual evoked potential recordings in conjunction with topographic-mapping and source analysis. These effects were then considered in relation to the subjective intensity of psilocybin-induced visual hallucinations quantified by psychometric measurement. Psilocybin dose-dependently decreased the N170 and, in contrast, slightly enhanced the P1 component selectively over occipital electrode sites. The decrease of the N170 was most apparent during the processing of incomplete object figures. Moreover, during the time period of the N170, the overall reduction of the activation in the right extrastriate and posterior parietal areas correlated positively with the intensity of visual hallucinations. These results suggest a central role of the 5-HT2A/1A-receptors in the modulation of visual processing. Specifically, a reduced N170 component was identified as potentially reflecting a key process of 5-HT2A/1A receptor-mediated visual hallucinations and aberrant modal object completion potential. Copyright © 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Oscillatory cortical network involved in auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia.

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Remko van Lutterveld

Full Text Available Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH, a prominent symptom of schizophrenia, are often highly distressing for patients. Better understanding of the pathogenesis of hallucinations could increase therapeutic options. Magnetoencephalography (MEG provides direct measures of neuronal activity and has an excellent temporal resolution, offering a unique opportunity to study AVH pathophysiology.Twelve patients (10 paranoid schizophrenia, 2 psychosis not otherwise specified indicated the presence of AVH by button-press while lying in a MEG scanner. As a control condition, patients performed a self-paced button-press task. AVH-state and non-AVH state were contrasted in a region-of-interest (ROI approach. In addition, the two seconds before AVH onset were contrasted with the two seconds after AVH onset to elucidate a possible triggering mechanism.AVH correlated with a decrease in beta-band power in the left temporal cortex. A decrease in alpha-band power was observed in the right inferior frontal gyrus. AVH onset was related to a decrease in theta-band power in the right hippocampus.These results suggest that AVH are triggered by a short aberration in the theta band in a memory-related structure, followed by activity in language areas accompanying the experience of AVH itself.

A Qualitative Analysis of Student Pharmacists’ Response after an Auditory Hallucination Simulation

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Genevieve L Ness

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Objectives: The goal of this research was to evaluate pharmacy students’ experiences and reactions when exposed to an auditory hallucination simulator. Methods: A convenient sample of 16 pharmacy students enrolled in the Advanced Psychiatry Elective at a private, faith-based university in the southeastern United States was selected. Students participated in an activity in which they listened to an auditory hallucination simulator from their personal laptop computers and completed a variety of tasks. Following the conclusion of the simulator, students composed a reflection guided by a five-question prompt. Qualitative analysis of the reflections was then completed to identify and categorize overarching themes. Results: The overarching themes identified included: 1 students mentioned strategies they used to overcome the distraction; 2 students discussed how the voices affected their ability to complete the activities; 3 students discussed the mental/physical toll they experienced; 4 students identified methods to assist patients with schizophrenia; 5 students mentioned an increase in their empathy for patients; 6 students reported their reactions to the voices; 7 students recognized how schizophrenia could affect the lives of these patients; and 8 students expressed how their initial expectations and reactions to the voices changed throughout the course of the simulation. Overall, the use of this simulator as a teaching aid was well received by students. Summary: In conclusion, pharmacy students were impacted by the hallucination simulator and expressed an increased awareness of the challenges faced by these patients on a daily basis. Conflict of Interest We declare no conflicts of interest or financial interests that the authors or members of their immediate families have in any product or service discussed in the manuscript, including grants (pending or received, employment, gifts, stock holdings or options, honoraria, consultancies, expert

Heterogeneous iris image hallucination using sparse representation on a learned heterogeneous patch dictionary

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Li, Yung-Hui; Zheng, Bo-Ren; Ji, Dai-Yan; Tien, Chung-Hao; Liu, Po-Tsun

2014-09-01

Cross sensor iris matching may seriously degrade the recognition performance because of the sensor mis-match problem of iris images between the enrollment and test stage. In this paper, we propose two novel patch-based heterogeneous dictionary learning method to attack this problem. The first method applies the latest sparse representation theory while the second method tries to learn the correspondence relationship through PCA in heterogeneous patch space. Both methods learn the basic atoms in iris textures across different image sensors and build connections between them. After such connections are built, at test stage, it is possible to hallucinate (synthesize) iris images across different sensors. By matching training images with hallucinated images, the recognition rate can be successfully enhanced. The experimental results showed the satisfied results both visually and in terms of recognition rate. Experimenting with an iris database consisting of 3015 images, we show that the EER is decreased 39.4% relatively by the proposed method.

Some observations on hallucination: clinical application of some developments of Melanie Klein's work.

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Taylor, D

1983-01-01

The analysis of a psychotic patient is used to illustrate the importance of certain developments of Melanie Klein's work. The case presentation focuses upon the formal qualities of the patient's communications, many of which were amalgamations of profoundly incompatible elements, particularly a subtle destructiveness which parasitized seemingly impartial reports about her state of mind. These communications embodied important object relationships. The patient used her communications to conjure up psychic disintegration. As a result of her involvement in 'chuntering' her preoccupations would become increasingly violent, cruel and sexualized. The patient's equivocal communications generate confusion. This is central to the patient's experience of self-destruction as persecution. A number of ideas are advanced concerning the origins of the patient's hallucinations. These include her relish at the introduction of sensory distortions. Questions are raised about the nature of certain types of hallucination, the origins and intractability of concrete thinking, about verbalization and about the typology of psychotic patients.

Auditory verbal hallucinations and cognitive functioning in healthy individuals.

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Daalman, Kirstin; van Zandvoort, Martine; Bootsman, Florian; Boks, Marco; Kahn, René; Sommer, Iris

2011-11-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are a characteristic symptom in schizophrenia, and also occur in the general, non-clinical population. In schizophrenia patients, several specific cognitive deficits, such as in speech processing, working memory, source memory, attention, inhibition, episodic memory and self-monitoring have been associated with auditory verbal hallucinations. Such associations are interesting, as they may identify specific cognitive traits that constitute a predisposition for AVH. However, it is difficult to disentangle a specific relation with AVH in patients with schizophrenia, as so many other factors can affect the performance on cognitive tests. Examining the cognitive profile of healthy individuals experiencing AVH may reveal a more direct association between AVH and aberrant cognitive functioning in a specific domain. For the current study, performance in executive functioning, memory (both short- and long-term), processing speed, spatial ability, lexical access, abstract reasoning, language and intelligence performance was compared between 101 healthy individuals with AVH and 101 healthy controls, matched for gender, age, handedness and education. Although performance of both groups was within the normal range, not clinically impaired, significant differences between the groups were found in the verbal domain as well as in executive functioning. Performance on all other cognitive domains was similar in both groups. The predisposition to experience AVH is associated with lower performance in executive functioning and aberrant language performance. This association might be related to difficulties in the inhibition of irrelevant verbal information. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

dnAGEnetics: genomic copy number variants and parental age as risk factors for psychiatric disorders

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Buizer - Voskamp, J.E.

2011-01-01

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a debilitating psychiatric disorder with a life-time risk of 0.46 – 1% in the general population. It is characterized by psychotic symptoms, including delusions and hallucinations. Its predisposition is influenced by a complex interaction of genetic and environmental

Short and long term effects of left and bilateral repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in schizophrenia patients with auditory verbal hallucinations: a randomized controlled trial.

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Leonie Bais

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the left temporo-parietal junction area has been studied as a treatment option for auditory verbal hallucinations. Although the right temporo-parietal junction area has also shown involvement in the genesis of auditory verbal hallucinations, no studies have used bilateral stimulation. Moreover, little is known about durability effects. We studied the short and long term effects of 1 Hz treatment of the left temporo-parietal junction area in schizophrenia patients with persistent auditory verbal hallucinations, compared to sham stimulation, and added an extra treatment arm of bilateral TPJ area stimulation. METHODS: In this randomized controlled trial, 51 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and persistent auditory verbal hallucinations were randomly allocated to treatment of the left or bilateral temporo-parietal junction area or sham treatment. Patients were treated for six days, twice daily for 20 minutes. Short term efficacy was measured with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS, the Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale (AHRS, and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS. We included follow-up measures with the AHRS and PANAS at four weeks and three months. RESULTS: The interaction between time and treatment for Hallucination item P3 of the PANSS showed a trend for significance, caused by a small reduction of scores in the left group. Although self-reported hallucination scores, as measured with the AHRS and PANAS, decreased significantly during the trial period, there were no differences between the three treatment groups. CONCLUSION: We did not find convincing evidence for the efficacy of left-sided rTMS, compared to sham rTMS. Moreover, bilateral rTMS was not superior over left rTMS or sham in improving AVH. Optimizing treatment parameters may result in stronger evidence for the efficacy of rTMS treatment of AVH. Moreover, future research should consider

The DSM-5 nonsuicidal self-injury disorder among incoming college students: Prevalence and associations with 12-month mental disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

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Kiekens, Glenn; Hasking, Penelope; Claes, Laurence; Mortier, Philippe; Auerbach, Randy P; Boyes, Mark; Cuijpers, Pim; Demyttenaere, Koen; Green, Jennifer G; Kessler, Ronald C; Nock, Matthew K; Bruffaerts, Ronny

2018-04-26

Approximately one in five college students report a history of nonsuicidal self-injury. However, it is unclear how many students meet criteria for the recently proposed DSM-5 nonsuicidal self-injury disorder (NSSI-D). In this study, we used full NSSI-D criteria to identify those students most in need of clinical care. Using data from the Leuven College Surveys (n = 4,565), we examined the 12-month prevalence of DSM-5 NSSI-D in a large and representative sample of incoming college students. We also explored the optimal frequency threshold as a function of interference in functioning due to NSSI, and examined comorbidity patterns with other 12-month mental disorders (i.e., major depressive disorder, broad mania, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and alcohol dependence) and suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB). Twelve-month NSSI-D prevalence was 0.8% and more common among females (1.1%) than males (0.4%). The proposed 5+ diagnostic threshold was confirmed as yielding highest discrimination between threshold and subthreshold cases in terms of distress or disability due to NSSI. A dose-response relationship was observed for NSSI recency-severity (i.e., 12-month NSSI-D, subthreshold 12-month NSSI-D, past NSSI, no history of NSSI) with number of 12-month mental disorders and STB. NSSI-D occurred without comorbid disorders for one in five individuals, and remained associated with severe role impairment when controlling for the number of comorbid disorders. These findings offer preliminary evidence that DSM-5 NSSI-D is uncommon among incoming college students, but may help to improve the deployment of targeted resource allocation to those most in need of services. More work examining the validity of NSSI-D is required. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The “Endless Trip” among the NPS Users: Psychopathology and Psychopharmacology in the Hallucinogen-Persisting Perception Disorder. A Systematic Review

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Laura Orsolini

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder (HPPD is a syndrome characterized by prolonged or reoccurring perceptual symptoms, reminiscent of acute hallucinogen effects. HPPD was associated with a broader range of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide-like substances, cannabis, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, psilocybin, mescaline, and psychostimulants. The recent emergence of novel psychoactive substances (NPS posed a critical concern regarding the new onset of psychiatric symptoms/syndromes, including cases of HPPD. Symptomatology mainly comprises visual disorders (i.e., geometric pseudo-hallucinations, haloes, flashes of colors/lights, motion-perception deficits, afterimages, micropsia, more acute awareness of floaters, etc., even though depressive symptoms and thought disorders may be comorbidly present. Although HPPD was first described in 1954, it was just established as a fully syndrome in 2000, with the revised fourth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR. HPPD neural substrates, risk factors, and aetiopathogenesys still largely remain unknown and under investigation, and many questions about its pharmacological targets remain unanswered too. A critical mini review on psychopathological bases, etiological hypothesis, and psychopharmacological approaches toward HPPD, including the association with some novel substances, are provided here, by means of a literature search on PubMed/Medline, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases without time restrictions, by using a specific set of keywords. Pharmacological and clinical issues are considered, and practical psychopharmacological recommendations and clinical guidelines are suggested.

[A study of relationships among solvent inhalation, personality and expectancy; especially on affinity to hallucination, sensation seeking and neurotic tendency].

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Morita, N; Satoh, S; Oda, S; Tomita, H; Shoji, M; Seno, E; Abe, K; Konishi, T

1994-10-01

94 delinquents in two homes for resocialization were surveyed to elucidate the relationship among the status of volatile solvent inhalation, expectancy and personality. The subjects were classified into solvent-inhalation group and non-solvent-inhalation group, and the former was divided into solvent dependence group and abuse group according to DSM-III-R. Each group was given personality tests; general health questionnaire (GHQ), sensation seeking scale (SSS), the vividness of visual imagery (VVIQ), test of visual imagery control (TVIC) and Yatabe-Guilford test (YG). In addition we investigated expectancy and mental symptoms caused by inhalation in it. The results are summarized as follows; 1. Inhalation group scored higher on SSS than non-inhalation group. 2. Compared with abuse group, dependence group presented with 1) higher GHQ score meaning neurotic tendency; 2) higher TVIC score meaning imagery-control-ability; 3) a higher incidence of day-dream and hallucination, especially egosyntonic type; 4) higher expectancy of "enhancement of positive affection", "reduction of negative affection" and "hallucination seeking"; 5) lower expectancy of "association with friends". 3. Higher scored inhalers on TVIC showed visual hallucinations, especially egosyntonic type more frequently than lower ones. 4. Significant correlations were recognized between GHQ score and expectancy of "reduction of negative affection", and between lack of objectiveness score of YG subscale and "hallucination seeking" expectancy. These results suggested that 1) beginning of inhalation is associated with sensation seeking trait, 2) progression to solvent dependence is correlated with three expectancies, i.e., seeking egosyntonic hallucinations paralleling high imagery-control-ability and subjectivity, reducing negative affection paralleling neurotic tendency, and enhancing positive affection. According to the findings, indulgence to drug induced positive imagery led delinquents into splitting of

Schizoaffective disorder

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... or do not improve with treatment Thoughts of suicide or of harming others Alternative Names Mood disorder - schizoaffective disorder; Psychosis - schizoaffective disorder Images Schizoaffective disorder ...

Psychometric qualities of the Thought Suppression Inventory-Revised in different age groups

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Schie, K.; Wanmaker, Sabine; Yocarini, Iris; Bouwmeester, Samantha

Intrusive thoughts about negative events are core symptoms of several psychiatric disorders. Because current instruments for the assessment of thought suppression are unsatisfactory, we developed and evaluated the dimensionality and validity of a questionnaire that distinguishes between three major

Prediction of Somatization on the Basis of Self-steem, Insomnia and Paranoid Thoughts in University Students

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Farhad Ghadiri Sourman Abadi

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Background and Objectives: Somatization is a somatoform disorder, which medical examinations are not able to explain its reason. In the present research, the role of self-esteem, insomnia, and paranoid thoughts was investigated in somatization disorder. Methods: This descriptive and correlational study was conducted on all students studying at University of Tabriz in the academic year 2014-2015. A total of 270 subjects were selected using stratified random sampling method. In this research, Eysenck Self-Esteem Inventory, Insomnia Severity Index (ISI, Somatization Questionnaire (PHQ-15, and Green et al. Paranoid Thought Scales (GPTS were used. Data were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis tests. Results: Correlation results indicated that somatization disorder has a significant positive relationship with paranoid thoughts and insomnia and a significant negative relationship with self-esteem. Also, based on the results of multiple regression analysis, Insomnia Index had the greatest ability to predict somatization disorder. Conclusion: The findings of this research revealed that factors, such as insomnia, paranoid thoughts, and low self-esteem should be considered in the treatment of somatization disorder.

Thought-action fusion: a comprehensive analysis using structural equation modeling.

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Marino, Teresa L; Lunt, Rachael A; Negy, Charles

2008-07-01

Thought-action fusion (TAF), the phenomenon whereby one has difficulty separating cognitions from corresponding behaviors, has implications in a wide variety of disturbances, including eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. Numerous constructs believed to contribute to the etiology or maintenance of TAF have been identified in the literature, but to date, no study has empirically integrated these findings into a comprehensive model. In this study, we examined simultaneously an array of variables thought to be related to TAF, and subsequently developed a model that elucidates the role of those variables that seem most involved in this phenomenon using a structural equation modeling approach. Results indicated that religiosity, as predicted by ethnic identity, was a significant predictor of TAF. Additionally, the relation between ethnic identity and TAF was partially mediated by an inflated sense of responsibility. Both TAF and obsessive-compulsive symptoms were found to be significant predictors of engagement in neutralization activities. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.

[Sleep disorders in epilepsy].

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Kotova, O V; Akarachkova, E S

2014-01-01

The review of the literature on sleep disorders in epilepsy over the last two decades is presented. Paroxysmal phenomena of epileptic origin, nonepileptic paroxysms, antiepileptic drugs, polypragmasia and comorbid depression may affect sleep in epilepsy.Shortening of sleep time may cause seizures, hallucinations and depression because sleep plays an important role in the regulation of excitatory and inhibitory processes in the brain both in healthy people and in patients with epilepsy. According to the literature data, drugs (short treatment courses of hypnotics) or nonpharmacological methods should be used for treatment insomnia inpatients with epilepsy.

18FDG-PET and electroencephalographic findings in a patient suffering from musical hallucinations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Erkwoh, R.; Ebel, H.; Kachel, F.; Reiche, W.; Ringelstein, E.B.; Buell, U.; Sass, H.

1993-01-01

The majority of reports on the phenomenon of musical hallucinations suggests that this abnormality is a complication of a progressive peripheral hearing deficit. The present case report and a review of the international literature would, however, indicate that this syndrome may be the result of a dysfunction of the temporal cortex. (orig.) [de

Are Cardiometabolic and Endocrine Abnormalities Linked to Sleep Difficulties in Schizophrenia? A Hypothesis Driven Review

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Robillard, Rébecca; Rogers, Naomi L.; Whitwell, Bradley G.

2012-01-01

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that includes symptoms such as hallucinations, disordered thoughts, disorganized or catatonic behaviour, cognitive dysfunction and sleep-wake disturbance. In addition to these symptoms, cardiometabolic dysfunction is common in patients with schizophrenia. While previously it has been thought that cardiometabolic symptoms in patients with schizophrenia were associated with medications used to manage this disorder, more recently it has been demonstrated that these symptoms are present in drug naive and unmedicated patients. Sleep-wake disturbance, resulting in chronic sleep loss has also been demonstrated to induce changes in cardiometabolic function. Chronic sleep loss has been associated with an increased risk for weight gain, obesity and cardiac and metabolic disorders, independent of other potentially contributing factors, such as smoking and body mass index. We hypothesise that the sleep-wake disturbance comorbid with schizophrenia may play a significant role in the high prevalence of cardiometabolic dysfunction observed in this patient population. Here we present a critical review of the evidence that supports this hypothesis. PMID:23429436

Implicit and explicit appraisals of the importance of intrusive thoughts.

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Teachman, Bethany A; Woody, Sheila R; Magee, Joshua C

2006-06-01

To evaluate cognitive theories of obsessions, the current study experimentally manipulated appraisals of the importance of intrusive thoughts. Undergraduate students (N = 156) completed measures of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms and beliefs and were primed with a list of commonly reported unwanted thoughts. Participants were then informed that unwanted thoughts are either (1) significant and indicative of their personal values, or (2) meaningless, or participants (3) received no instructions about unwanted thoughts. Participants then completed implicit and explicit measures of self-evaluation and interpretations of their unwanted thoughts. Results indicated that the manipulation shifted implicit appraisals of unwanted thoughts in the expected direction, but not self-evaluations of morality or dangerousness. Interestingly, explicit self-esteem and beliefs about the significance of unwanted thoughts were associated with measures of OCD beliefs, whereas implicit self-evaluations of dangerousness were better predicted by the interaction of pre-existing OCD beliefs with the manipulation. Results are discussed in terms of divergent predictors of implicit and explicit responses to unwanted thoughts.

Changes of Retina Are Not Involved in the Genesis of Visual Hallucinations in Parkinson’s Disease

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Aleš Kopal

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Parkinson’s disease (PD is characterized by motor and nonmotor symptoms. Nonmotor symptoms include primarily visual hallucinations (VH. The aim of our study was to establish whether patients with PD and visual hallucinations (PDH+ have structural changes of retina detected by an optical coherence tomography (OCT in comparison with PD patients without visual hallucinations (PDH−. We examined 52 PD patients (18 with VH, 34 without VH and 15 age and sex matched healthy controls. Retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL thickness and macular thickness and volume were assessed by OCT. Functional impairment of retina was assessed using 2.5% contrast sensitivity test. For OCT outcomes we analyzed 15 PDH+ and 15 PDH− subjects matched for age, gender, and PD duration. For contrast sensitivity we analyzed 8 pairs of patients matched for age, gender, and visual acuity. There was no significant difference in RNFL thickness and macular thickness and macular volume between 15 PDH+ and 15 PDH− subjects, and also between a group of 44 PD patients (both PDH+ and PDH− and 15 age and gender matched healthy controls. No significant difference was found for 2.5% contrast sensitivity test values between PDH+ and PDH− subjects. Therefore we conclude that functional and structural changes in retina play no role in genesis of VH in PD.

Recommending "Unstuck-Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression"

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

CHEN Ke-ji; CONG Wei-hong

2010-01-01

@@ Depression is a common disorder worldwide.In the West,depression is also called "the blues" informally.It is a psychological disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood.Slightly depressed people may behave normally,while experiencing feelings of pain at heart.In mild depression cases,people may feel gloomy or distressed,which is usually associated with memory impairment,insomnia,dreaminess,etc.People suffering from severe depression may be preoccupied with,or ruminate over,thoughts and feelings of worthlessness,inappropriate guilt,helplessness,hopelessness,hallucinations,or delusions,most often accompanied by recurrent thoughts of death,suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide.With the intensifying pressure and a competition of modern society,many people become victims of depression.It brings great trouble and burden to patients,their families,and society.

Social Cognition in Borderline Personality Disorder: Evidence for Disturbed Recognition of the Emotions, Thoughts, and Intentions of Others

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Sandra Preißler

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Disturbed relatedness is a core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD, and impaired social cognition or deficits in mentalization are hypothesized to underlie this feature. To date, only weak empirical evidence argues for impairment in the recognition of emotions, thoughts, or intentions in BPD. Data from facial emotion recognition research indicate that these abilities are altered in BPD only if tasks are complex. The present study aims to assess social cognitive abilities in BPD. Sixty-four women with BPD and 38 healthy controls watched the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC, a newly developed film displaying social interactions, and asking for an assessment of the intentions, emotions, and thoughts of the characters. In addition, participants completed an established but less ecologically valid measure of social cognition (Reading the Mind in the Eyes; RME. In the RME task, BPD patients did not display impairment in social cognition compared to healthy controls. By contrast, on the more sensitive MASC, women with BPD showed significantly impaired abilities in social cognition compared to healthy controls in their recognition of emotions, thoughts, and intentions. Comorbid PTSD, intrusions, and sexual trauma negatively predicted social cognitive abilities on the more sensitive MASC. Thus, our results suggest impaired social cognitive abilities in BPD. Especially for comorbid PTSD, intrusive symptoms and history of sexual trauma predicted poor outcomes on social cognition tasks.

Voxel-based gray and white matter morphometry correlates of hallucinations in schizophrenia: The superior temporal gyrus does not stand alone.

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van Tol, Marie-José; van der Meer, Lisette; Bruggeman, Richard; Modinos, Gemma; Knegtering, Henderikus; Aleman, André

2014-01-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in schizophrenia (SZ) have been proposed to result from abnormal local, interregional and interhemispheric integration of brain signals in regions involved in language production and perception. This abnormal functional integration may find its base in morphological abnormalities. Structurally, AVHs have been frequently linked to abnormal morphology of the superior temporal gyrus (STG), but only a few studies investigated the relation of hallucination presence with both whole-brain gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) morphometry. Using a unified voxel-based morphometry-DARTEL approach, we investigated correlates of AVH presence in 51 schizophrenia patients (20 non-hallucinating [SZ -], 31 hallucinating [SZ +]), and included 51 age and sex matched healthy participants. Effects are reported at p frontal and right parahippocampal gyrus, and higher WM volume of the left postcentral and superior parietal lobule than controls. Finally, volume of the putamen was lower in SZ + compared to SZ -. No effects on corpus callosum morphometry were observed. Delusion severity, general positive and negative symptomatology illness duration, and medication status could not explain the results. Results suggest that STG GM abnormalities underlie the general susceptibility to experience psychotic symptoms and that additional abnormalities in a network of medial temporal, ventrolateral, putaminal, and parietal regions related to verbal memory and speech production may specifically increase the likelihood of experiencing AVH. Future studies should clarify the meaning of morphometry abnormalities for functional interregional communication.

Metacognitive Model of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

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Mehmet Zihni Sungur

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Several authors have suggested that not only appraisal of significance of external events and signals from the body, but also appraisal of the personal significance of thoughts are important, and emphasized the conceptual limitations of the schema approach in cognitive model and developed the integrative information processing model of emotional disorders. According to this approach, the assessment of the meaning of thought, rather than thought itself is more important in the development and maintenance of the psychopathology. In the metacognitive model of obsessive compulsive disorder, three types of metacognitive beliefs are emphasized. These are; thought-action fusion (thought-action, thought-event, thought-object, metacognitive beliefs on performing the rituals and metacognitive beliefs on the warning to stop to terminate the rituals. According to the model, targeting directly to change in metacognitive beliefs will increase success in therapy. In this article, the concept of metacognition in emotional disorders, the metacognitive model of obsessive compulsive disorder and the advances that the model introduced in conceptualization and treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder have been discussed.

Feasibility and Clinical Utility of High-definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in the Treatment of Persistent Hallucinations in Schizophrenia.

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Bose, A; Shivakumar, V; Chhabra, H; Parlikar, R; Sreeraj, V S; Dinakaran, D; Narayanaswamy, J C; Venkatasubramanian, G

2017-12-01

Persistent auditory verbal hallucination is a clinically significant problem in schizophrenia. Recent studies suggest a promising role for add-on transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in treatment. An optimised version of tDCS, namely high-definition tDCS (HD-tDCS), uses smaller electrodes arranged in a 4x1 ring configuration and may offer more focal and predictable neuromodulation than conventional tDCS. This case report illustrates the feasibility and clinical utility of add-on HD-tDCS over the left temporoparietal junction in a 4x1 ring configuration to treat persistent auditory verbal hallucination in schizophrenia.

Psychotic experiences co-occur with sleep problems, negative affect and mental disorders in preadolescence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jeppesen, Pia; Clemmensen, Lars; Munkholm, Anja

2015-01-01

or definitely present. The Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) was used independently to diagnose DSM-IV-mental disorders. Puberty development and sleep disturbance were self-reported. The associations between PE (any lifetime hallucination and/or delusion) and various mental problems and disorders......-reported mental health difficulties in absence of a diagnosis (31.4%). The risk of delusions increased with onset of puberty. The risk of PE increased with emotional and neurodevelopmental disorders, subthreshold depressive symptoms, sleep problems and lack of sleep, regardless of whether PE were expressed...

Cerebral Responses to Vocal Attractiveness and Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenia: A Functional MRI Study

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Michihiko eKoeda

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Impaired self-monitoring and abnormalities of cognitive bias have been implicated as cognitive mechanisms of hallucination; regions fundamental to these processes including inferior frontal gyrus (IFG and superior temporal gyrus (STG are abnormally activated in individuals that hallucinate. A recent study showed activation in IFG-STG to be modulated by auditory attractiveness, but no study has investigated whether these IFG-STG activations are impaired in schizophrenia. We aimed to clarify the cerebral function underlying the perception of auditory attractiveness in schizophrenia patients. Cerebral activation was examined in 18 schizophrenia patients and 18 controls when performing Favourability Judgment Task (FJT and Gender Differentiation Task (GDT for pairs of greetings using event-related functional MRI. A full-factorial analysis revealed that the main effect of task was associated with activation of left IFG and STG. The main effect of Group revealed less activation of left STG in schizophrenia compared with controls, whereas significantly greater activation in schizophrenia than in controls was revealed at the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG, right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ, right occipital lobe, and right amygdala (p<0.05, FDR-corrected. A significant positive correlation was observed at the right TPJ and right MFG between cerebral activation under FJT minus GDT contrast and the score of hallucinatory behaviour on the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale. Findings of hypo-activation in the left STG could designate brain dysfunction in accessing vocal attractiveness in schizophrenia, whereas hyper-activation in the right TPJ and MFG may reflect the process of mentalizing other person’s behaviour by auditory hallucination by abnormality of cognitive bias.

The auditory dorsal stream plays a crucial role in projecting hallucinated voices into external space

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Looijestijn, Jasper; Diederen, Kelly M. J.; Goekoop, Rutger; Sommer, Iris E. C.; Daalman, Kirstin; Kahn, Rene S.; Hoek, Hans W.; Blom, Jan Dirk

Introduction: Verbal auditory hallucinations (VAHs) are experienced as spoken voices which seem to originate in the extracorporeal environment or inside the head. Animal and human research has identified a 'where' pathway for sound processing comprising the planum temporale, the middle frontal gyrus

The thought-action fusion scale: further evidence for its reliability and validity.

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Rassin, E; Merckelbach, H; Muris, P; Schmidt, H

2001-05-01

Thought-action fusion (TAF) refers to a set of cognitive biases that are thought to play a role in the development of obsessional phenomena. To measure these biases, R. Shafran, D. S. Thordarson, and S. Rachman (1996; Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 10, 379-391) developed the TAF-scale. They concluded that the TAF-scale possesses adequate psychometric qualities. The current study sought to further explore the reliability and validity of the TAF-scale. Results indicate that the TAF-scale has good internal consistency. TAF-scores correlated with self-reports of obsessional problems. Furthermore, mean scores in a mixed sample of anxiety disordered patients were higher than those in a normal sample. However, temporal consistency was somewhat disappointing. Also, the question remains whether TAF is specific to obsessive-compulsive disorder or taps more pervasive biases that play a role in a variety of disorders.

ALCOHOLIC HALLUCINOSIS AND PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA?A COMPARATIVE (CLINICAL AND FOLLOW UP) STUDY

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Sampath, G.; Kumar, Y. Vikram; Channabasavanna, S. M.; Keshavan, M. S.

1980-01-01

SUMMARY In a Study Of 90 patients of Alcoholic Hallucinosis and 30 patients of Paranoid Schizophrenia, it was found that delusions, delusions of infidelity, third person and running commentary auditory hallucinations and insight were not different in the two groups. Delusions of grandeur, passivity, thought echo and thought broadcast were significantly more frequent in paranoid schizophrenic patients. Anxiety, visual iiafracinatians and hallucinations in more than one modality at the same tim...

The Influence of Thought Suppression and Cognitive Load on Intrusions and Memory Processes following an Analogue Stressor

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Nixon, Reginald D. V.; Cain, Neralie; Nehmy, Thomas; Seymour, Melanie

2009-01-01

Ironic Process Theory and the role of thought suppression have been used in part to explain the phenomenon of intrusive memories in various disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder. How thought suppression interacts with other cognitive processes believed to be instrumental in the development of traumatic intrusive memory is unclear. In…

The Multidimensional Spectrum of Imagination: Images, Dreams, Hallucinations, and Active, Imaginative Perception

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Nigel J.T. Thomas

2014-04-01

Full Text Available A theory of the structure and cognitive function of the human imagination that attempts to do justice to traditional intuitions about its psychological centrality is developed, largely through a detailed critique of the theory propounded by Colin McGinn. Like McGinn, I eschew the highly deflationary views of imagination, common amongst analytical philosophers, that treat it either as a conceptually incoherent notion, or as psychologically trivial. However, McGinn fails to develop his alternative account satisfactorily because (following Reid, Wittgenstein and Sartre he draws an excessively sharp, qualitative distinction between imagination and perception, and because of his flawed, empirically ungrounded conception of hallucination. His arguments in defense of these views are rebutted in detail, and the traditional, passive, Cartesian view of visual perception, upon which several of them implicitly rely, is criticized in the light of findings from recent cognitive science and neuroscience. It is also argued that the apparent intuitiveness of the passive view of visual perception is a result of mere historical contingency. An understanding of perception (informed by modern visual science as an inherently active process enables us to unify our accounts of perception, mental imagery, dreaming, hallucination, creativity, and other aspects of imagination within a single coherent theoretical framework.

Accept, distract, or reframe? An exploratory experimental comparison of strategies for coping with intrusive body image thoughts in anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder.

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Hartmann, Andrea S; Thomas, Jennifer J; Greenberg, Jennifer L; Rosenfield, Elizabeth H; Wilhelm, Sabine

2015-02-28

Negative body image is the hallmark of anorexia nervosa (AN) and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). One aspect of body image, appearance-related thoughts, have shown to be a major contributor to relapse, thus further investigation of successful treatment strategies targeting these maladaptive thoughts are warranted. The present study tested an acceptance/mindfulness (AC), a cognitive restructuring (CR), and a distraction strategy with regard to their short-term effectiveness of reducing the frequency of thought occurrence and associated outcomes in participants with AN (n=20), BDD (n=21), and healthy controls (HC; n=22). Although all strategies led to a significant reduction of thought frequency, there was no group × strategy interaction effect in their reduction. Positive affect increased in the BDD group through the AC strategy, but decreased in healthy controls. Acceptance of the thought increased in the CR strategy in AN, whereas that strategy seemed to work least for BDD. Healthy controls showed most acceptance when using distraction. Taken together, the study suggests that all strategies might have their benefits and that it might be worthwhile further investigating differential indication of the strategies with regard to diagnosis and individual factors. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thought-action fusion: a review.

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Shafran, R; Rachman, S

2004-06-01

The cognitive bias of "Thought Action Fusion" (TAF) has received significant research attention in the past decade. The review addresses the assessment of TAF, its place in cognitive theories of obsessional difficulties, and the evidence demonstrating that TAF is relevant to disorders beyond Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Data on the components of TAF, its extension to positive outcomes and its role in the aetiology, maintenance and treatment of OCD are reviewed. It is concluded that the moral form of TAF is less robust than the likelihood form and that scales may be best used as a starting point in identifying beliefs and conducting experimental investigations. It is also suggested that the scales be amended to include harm avoidance, which would also increase their clinical utility.

The influence of thoughts of death and suicidal ideation on the course of depression in older depressed patients

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bogers, I.; Zuidersma, M.; Boshuisen, M.L.; Comijs, H.C.; Oude Voshaar, R.C.

2017-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Thoughts of death are not regularly included in diagnostic instruments and rarely examined separately from thoughts of suicide. This exploratory study examined whether thoughts of death and thoughts of suicide affect the course of late-life depressive disorders. METHODS: In 378 depressed

The influence of thoughts of death and suicidal ideation on the course of depression in older depressed patients

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bogers, Ista C H M; Zuidersma, Marij; Boshuisen, Marjolein L; Oude Voshaar, Richard C

OBJECTIVE: Thoughts of death are not regularly included in diagnostic instruments and rarely examined separately from thoughts of suicide. This exploratory study examined whether thoughts of death and thoughts of suicide affect the course of late-life depressive disorders. METHODS: In 378 depressed

Visual Hallucinations in a Patient with Horner's Syndrome Secondary to Internal Carotid Dissection

OpenAIRE

Amardeep Singh; Panteleimon Mortzos; Torben Lykke Sørensen

2014-01-01

A 67-year-old female presented with post-ganglionic Horner's syndrome. In addition to the classical symptoms of Horner's syndrome, the patient reported experiencing frightening complex visual and auditory hallucinations on two different occasions. Magnetic resonance angiography of the cerebrum, neck and upper thorax revealed internal carotid dissection. The symptoms and hallucinatory experiences resolved soon after antiplatelet therapy was commenced. We propose peduncular hallucinosis as the ...

Diminished auditory sensory gating during active auditory verbal hallucinations.

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Thoma, Robert J; Meier, Andrew; Houck, Jon; Clark, Vincent P; Lewine, Jeffrey D; Turner, Jessica; Calhoun, Vince; Stephen, Julia

2017-10-01

Auditory sensory gating, assessed in a paired-click paradigm, indicates the extent to which incoming stimuli are filtered, or "gated", in auditory cortex. Gating is typically computed as the ratio of the peak amplitude of the event related potential (ERP) to a second click (S2) divided by the peak amplitude of the ERP to a first click (S1). Higher gating ratios are purportedly indicative of incomplete suppression of S2 and considered to represent sensory processing dysfunction. In schizophrenia, hallucination severity is positively correlated with gating ratios, and it was hypothesized that a failure of sensory control processes early in auditory sensation (gating) may represent a larger system failure within the auditory data stream; resulting in auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). EEG data were collected while patients (N=12) with treatment-resistant AVH pressed a button to indicate the beginning (AVH-on) and end (AVH-off) of each AVH during a paired click protocol. For each participant, separate gating ratios were computed for the P50, N100, and P200 components for each of the AVH-off and AVH-on states. AVH trait severity was assessed using the Psychotic Symptoms Rating Scales AVH Total score (PSYRATS). The results of a mixed model ANOVA revealed an overall effect for AVH state, such that gating ratios were significantly higher during the AVH-on state than during AVH-off for all three components. PSYRATS score was significantly and negatively correlated with N100 gating ratio only in the AVH-off state. These findings link onset of AVH with a failure of an empirically-defined auditory inhibition system, auditory sensory gating, and pave the way for a sensory gating model of AVH. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Thought-action fusion: review of the literature and future directions.

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Berle, David; Starcevic, Vladan

2005-05-01

Thought-action fusion (TAF) is the tendency for individuals to assume that certain thoughts either imply the immorality of their character or increase the likelihood of catastrophic events. The burgeoning literature on TAF is reviewed. It is not clear whether TAF refers to a specific appraisal style, a more enduring belief, or a combination of both. Inconsistent definitions of magical thinking have hindered better understanding of the relationship between TAF and magical thinking. Much work remains to be done to improve assessment and measurement of TAF. TAF is associated with tendencies towards obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and may contribute to its symptoms. However, the literature investigating TAF and other variables implicated in OCD remains inconclusive. It is suggested that TAF is not specific to OCD, but also prevalent in other anxiety disorders. TAF appears to be moderately related to depressive symptoms and a similar bias may contribute to preoccupations in eating disorders. TAF is also associated with the presence of psychological disorders in children and adolescents. Educational and cognitive therapy approaches to reduce TAF and consequent symptoms are discussed, and suggestions for further research made.

A synthesis of evidence on inhibitory control and auditory hallucinations based on the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC framework.

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Johanna C. Badcock

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The National Institute of Mental Health initiative called the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC project aims to provide a new approach to understanding mental illness grounded in the fundamental domains of human behaviour and psychological functioning. To this end the RDoC framework encourages researchers and clinicians to think outside the [diagnostic]box, by studying symptoms, behaviours or biomarkers that cut across traditional mental illness categories. In this article we examine and discuss how the RDoC framework can improve our understanding of psychopathology by zeroing in on hallucinations- now widely recognized as a symptom that occurs in a range of clinical and non-clinical groups. We focus on a single domain of functioning - namely cognitive [inhibitory] control - and assimilate key findings structured around the basic RDoC units of analysis, which span the range from observable behaviour to molecular genetics. Our synthesis and critique of the literature provides a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved in the emergence of auditory hallucinations, linked to the individual dynamics of inhibitory development before and after puberty; favours separate developmental trajectories for clinical and nonclinical hallucinations; yields new insights into co-occurring emotional and behavioural problems; and suggests some novel avenues for treatment.

Theta Burst Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Auditory Verbal Hallucinations : Negative Findings From a Double-Blind-Randomized Trial

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koops, Sanne; van Dellen, Edwin; Schutte, Maya J L; Nieuwdorp, Wendy; Neggers, Sebastiaan F W; Sommer, Iris E C

BACKGROUND: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in schizophrenia are resistant to antipsychotic medication in approximately 25% of patients. Treatment with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for refractory AVH has shown varying results. A stimulation protocol using continuous theta

[The Effects of Auditory Hallucination Simulation on Empathy, Knowledge, Social Distance, and Attitudes Toward Patients With Mental Illness Among Undergraduate Students: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis].

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Lee, Ming-Feng; Lin, Ching-Lan Esther

2017-10-01

The negative attitudes of the general public toward mental illness frequently influence the integration of mental illness patients into the community. Auditory hallucination simulation may be considered as a creative teaching strategy to improve the attitudes of learners toward mental illness. However, the empirical effects of auditory hallucination simulation to change the negative attitudes toward mental illness remains uncertain. To compare and analyze, using a systematic review and meta-analysis, the effectiveness of auditory hallucination simulation in improving empathy, knowledge, social distance, and attitudes toward mental illness in undergraduates. A search using the keywords "auditory hallucination" and "simulation" and the 4 outcome indicators of empathy, knowledge, social distance, and attitudes toward mental illness was conducted to identify related articles published between 2008 and 2016 in 6 Chinese and English electronic databases, including Cochrane Library, EBSCO-CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Airiti Library. Research quality was appraised using the Modified Jadad Scale (MJS), the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Level of Evidence (OCEBM LoE), and the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Eleven studies were recruited, and 7 studies with sufficient data were included in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis showed that hallucination simulation significantly improved the empathy and knowledge of participants, with respective effect sizes of 0.63 (95% CI [0.21, 1.05]) and 0.69 (95% CI [0.43-0.94]). However, this intervention also increased social distance, with an effect size of 0.60 (95% CI [0.01, 1.19]), and did not change attitudes toward mental illness significantly, with an effect size of 0.33 (95% CI [-0.11, 0.77]). Auditory hallucination simulation is an effective teaching strategy for improving the empathy and knowledge of undergraduates. However, related evidence for the effects of social distance and attitudes toward mental illness

The prevalence of visual hallucinations in non-affective psychosis, and the role of perception and attention

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Ommen, van Marouska; van Beilen, M; Cornelissen, F W; Smid, H.G.O.M.; Knegtering, H; Aleman, A; van Laar, T

Background. Little is known about visual hallucinations (VH) in psychosis. We investigated the prevalence and the role of bottom-up and top-down processing in VH. The prevailing view is that VH are probably related to altered top-down processing, rather than to distorted bottom-up processing.

'The devil lay upon her and held her down' Hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis described by the Dutch physician Isbrand van Diemerbroeck (1609-1674) in 1664

OpenAIRE

Kompanje, Erwin

2008-01-01

textabstractHypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are visual, tactile, auditory or other sensory events, usually brief but sometimes prolonged, that occur at the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnagogic) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic). Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are often associated with sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis occurs immediately prior to falling asleep (hypnagogic paralysis) or upon waking (hypnopompic paralysis). In 1664, the Dutch physician I...

A differentiating empirical linguistic analysis of dreamer activity in reports of EEG-controlled REM-dreams and hypnagogic hallucinations.

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Speth, Jana; Frenzel, Clemens; Voss, Ursula

2013-09-01

We present Activity Analysis as a new method for the quantification of subjective reports of altered states of consciousness with regard to the indicated level of simulated motor activity. Empirical linguistic activity analysis was conducted with dream reports conceived immediately after EEG-controlled periods of hypnagogic hallucinations and REM-sleep in the sleep laboratory. Reports of REM-dreams exhibited a significantly higher level of simulated physical dreamer activity, while hypnagogic hallucinations appear to be experienced mostly from the point of passive observer. This study lays the groundwork for clinical research on the level of simulated activity in pathologically altered states of subjective experience, for example in the REM-dreams of clinically depressed patients, or in intrusions and dreams of patients diagnosed with PTSD. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Validation of the Paranoid Thoughts Scale in Iranian Population

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Karim Abdolmohammadi

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background and Objectives: Considering that paranoid thought has one-dimensional approach, use of long questionnaires has no clinical and research application, therefore use of short questionnaires seems necessary. The Green et al. paranoid thought scale is a short self-assessment tool for assessing paranoid thought in non-clinical and clinical group. This research was conducted to validate this questionnaire in Iranian population. Methods: In this cross-sectional survey, 356 students were selected using stratified sampling method and assessed by GPTS and Minnesota multiphasic paranoid inventory (MMPI in 2015. Validity was assessed simultaneously with MMPI testing. Results: The correlation coefficient of GPTS and MMPI scores was α=0.71 and significant (p<0.001. Internal consistency value was estimated to be 0.81 according to Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Conclusion: GPTS is an appropriate and short tool for screening in paranoid thought-related researches. Keywords: Paranoid disorders; Personality tests; Validation studies.

A comparison of symptoms and family history in schizophrenia with and without prior cannabis use: implications for the concept of cannabis psychosis.

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Boydell, J; Dean, K; Dutta, R; Giouroukou, E; Fearon, P; Murray, R

2007-07-01

There is considerable interest in cannabis use in psychosis. It has been suggested that the chronic psychosis associated with cannabis use, is symptomatically distinct from idiopathic schizophrenia. Several studies have reported differences in psychopathology and family history in people with schizophrenia according to whether or not they were cannabis users. We set out to test the hypotheses arising from these studies that cannabis use is associated with more bizarre behaviour, more thought disorder, fewer negative symptoms including blunted affect, more delusions of reference, more paranoid delusions and a stronger family history of schizophrenia. We used a case register that contained 757 cases of first onset schizophrenia, 182 (24%) of whom had used cannabis in the year prior to first presentation, 552 (73%) had not and 3% had missing data. We completed the OPCRIT checklist on all patients and investigated differences in the proportion of people with distractibility, bizarre behaviour, positive formal thought disorder, delusions of reference, well organised delusions, any first rank symptom, persecutory delusions, abusive/accusatory hallucinations, blunted affect, negative thought disorder, any negative symptoms (catatonia, blunted affect, negative thought disorder, or deterioration), lack of insight, suicidal ideation and a positive family history of schizophrenia, using chi square tests. Logistic regression modelling was then used to determine whether prior cannabis use affected the presence of the characteristics after controlling for age, sex and ethnicity. There was no statistically significant effect of cannabis use on the presence of any of the above. There remained however a non-significant trend towards more insight (OR 0.65 p=0.055 for "loss of insight") and a finding of fewer abusive or accusatory hallucinations (OR 0.65 p=0.049) of borderline significance amongst the cannabis users. These were in the hypothesised direction. There was no evidence of

Chronic auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic patients: MR analysis of the coincidence between functional and morphologic abnormalities.

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Martí-Bonmatí, Luis; Lull, Juan José; García-Martí, Gracián; Aguilar, Eduardo J; Moratal-Pérez, David; Poyatos, Cecilio; Robles, Montserrat; Sanjuán, Julio

2007-08-01

To prospectively evaluate if functional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging abnormalities associated with auditory emotional stimuli coexist with focal brain reductions in schizophrenic patients with chronic auditory hallucinations. Institutional review board approval was obtained and all participants gave written informed consent. Twenty-one right-handed male patients with schizophrenia and persistent hallucinations (started to hear hallucinations at a mean age of 23 years +/- 10, with 15 years +/- 8 of mean illness duration) and 10 healthy paired participants (same ethnic group [white], age, and education level [secondary school]) were studied. Functional echo-planar T2*-weighted (after both emotional and neutral auditory stimulation) and morphometric three-dimensional gradient-recalled echo T1-weighted MR images were analyzed using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM2) software. Brain activation images were extracted by subtracting those with emotional from nonemotional words. Anatomic differences were explored by optimized voxel-based morphometry. The functional and morphometric MR images were overlaid to depict voxels statistically reported by both techniques. A coincidence map was generated by multiplying the emotional subtracted functional MR and volume decrement morphometric maps. Statistical analysis used the general linear model, Student t tests, random effects analyses, and analysis of covariance with a correction for multiple comparisons following the false discovery rate method. Large coinciding brain clusters (P < .005) were found in the left and right middle temporal and superior temporal gyri. Smaller coinciding clusters were found in the left posterior and right anterior cingular gyri, left inferior frontal gyrus, and middle occipital gyrus. The middle and superior temporal and the cingular gyri are closely related to the abnormal neural network involved in the auditory emotional dysfunction seen in schizophrenic patients.

A lightning strike to the head causing a visual cortex defect with simple and complex visual hallucinations

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Kleiter, Ingo; Luerding, Ralf; Diendorfer, Gerhard; Rek, Helga; Bogdahn, Ulrich; Schalke, Berthold

2009-01-01

The case of a 23-year-old mountaineer who was hit by a lightning strike to the occiput causing a large central visual field defect and bilateral tympanic membrane ruptures is described. Owing to extreme agitation, the patient was sent into a drug-induced coma for 3 days. After extubation, she experienced simple and complex visual hallucinations for several days, but otherwise largely recovered. Neuropsychological tests revealed deficits in fast visual detection tasks and non-verbal learning and indicated a right temporal lobe dysfunction, consistent with a right temporal focus on electroencephalography. At 4 months after the accident, she developed a psychological reaction consisting of nightmares, with reappearance of the complex visual hallucinations and a depressive syndrome. Using the European Cooperation for Lightning Detection network, a meteorological system for lightning surveillance, the exact geographical location and nature of the lightning strike were retrospectively retraced PMID:21734915

Clinical and cognitive correlates of visual hallucinations in dementia with Lewy bodies.

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Cagnin, Annachiara; Gnoato, Francesca; Jelcic, Nela; Favaretto, Silvia; Zarantonello, Giulia; Ermani, Mario; Dam, Mauro

2013-05-01

The presence of recurrent complex visual hallucinations (VHs) is a core feature of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). The aim of this study was to investigate which clinical and neuropsychological characteristics are associated with VHs and their predictive value over a 1 year follow-up. 81 DLB patients, 41 with (VH+) and 36 without (VH-) VHs, and 45 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), were enrolled. All participants underwent extensive neuropsychological testing. Visual-spatial and perceptual abilities were evaluated with the Visual and Object Space Perception (VOSP) battery. Fluctuations in attention, rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) symptoms, extrapyramidal signs and behavioural disturbances were studied with dedicated clinical scales. The presence of VHs was associated with older age and later disease onset, but not with disease duration or with fluctuations, RBD or parkinsonism severity. Cognitive correlates of VHs were deficits in visual attention (digit cancellation: pspan forward: pVisual-perceptual and visual-spatial deficits were significantly worse in DLB than in AD patients (VOSP subtests scores 1, 6, 7 and 8) but were not different in DLB VH+ and VH-, except for subtest 6. Poor performance in the visual attention task was an independent predictor of VHs. Impairment of visual-spatial and perceptual abilities in DLB represents a disease related cognitive signature, independent of the presence of VHs, for which it may represent a predisposing condition. Visual attention, instead, is the main cognitive determinant for the genesis of VHs.

Human-Avatar Symbiosis for the Treatment of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Schizophrenia through Virtual/Augmented Reality and Brain-Computer Interfaces.

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Fernández-Caballero, Antonio; Navarro, Elena; Fernández-Sotos, Patricia; González, Pascual; Ricarte, Jorge J; Latorre, José M; Rodriguez-Jimenez, Roberto

2017-01-01

This perspective paper faces the future of alternative treatments that take advantage of a social and cognitive approach with regards to pharmacological therapy of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in patients with schizophrenia. AVH are the perception of voices in the absence of auditory stimulation and represents a severe mental health symptom. Virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) and brain computer interfaces (BCI) are technologies that are growing more and more in different medical and psychological applications. Our position is that their combined use in computer-based therapies offers still unforeseen possibilities for the treatment of physical and mental disabilities. This is why, the paper expects that researchers and clinicians undergo a pathway toward human-avatar symbiosis for AVH by taking full advantage of new technologies. This outlook supposes to address challenging issues in the understanding of non-pharmacological treatment of schizophrenia-related disorders and the exploitation of VR/AR and BCI to achieve a real human-avatar symbiosis.

Investigation Of The Relationship of Eating Attitudes With Thought Shape Fusion, Gender and Body Mass Index

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Sultan OKUMUSOGLU

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Certain patologies are accepted as characterized with relevant certain cognitive distortions. Eating Disorders and Obssessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD are related in terms of comorbidite, existence of similar distortions and intrusive thoughts. Distorted cognitions related with body shape and weight are associated with eating disorders and the distorted cognition which was conceptualised as thought shape fusion is accepted as a version of thought action fusion which is commonly seen at OCD. Because of its practical and theoretical relevance the aim of the present study is investigation of the relationship of eating attitudes of individuals with thought shape fusion cognitive distortion and gender and body mass index (BMI. Participants are 73 university students with age range 18-28 (58 male. Eating Attitudes Test (EAT and Thought Shape Fusion Scale (TSFS have been used for data collection. A positive correlation was found between TSFS and EAT (r= 0.53, p=0.01 and TSFS and BMI (r=0,34, p=0,01. According to stepwise regression analysis primary predictor of TSFS scores are EAT scores; %28 of the variance of the TSFS was explained by EAT scores and when BMI and gender variables are added the explained variance is %47. Women differed with significantly higher means in terms of EAT scores. Groups were formed according to pathology cut point of EAT scale (≥30 and the group above the cut point differed with significantly higher TSFS mean scores. Results of the present study seems parallel with the claims which associates eating disorders with distorted cognitions which are expressions of intrusive thoughts similar to OCD and associated with characteristics of eating disorders as overrating of food, body weight and shape. Findings are evaluated as having practical and theoretical significance. It is hoped that after supported with future studies the findings of the present study will be useful by adding to the existing knowledge in the field which

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for hallucination in schizophrenia spectrum disorders A meta-analysis***

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Yingli Zhang; Wei Liang; Shichang Yang; Ping Dai; Lijuan Shen; Changhong Wang

2013-01-01

OBJECTIVE: This study assessed the efficacy and tolerability of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment of auditory hal ucination of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. DATA SOURCES: Online literature retrieval was conducted using PubMed, ISI Web of Science, EMBASE, Medline and Cochrane Central Register of Control ed Trials databases from January 1985 to May 2012. Key words were “transcranial magnetic stimulation”, “TMS”, “repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation”, and “hal ucination”. STUDY SELECTION: Selected studies were randomized control ed trials assessing therapeutic ef-ficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for hal ucination in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Experimental intervention was low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in left temporoparietal cortex for treatment of auditory hal ucination in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Control groups received sham stimulation. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was total scores of Auditory Hal ucinations Rating Scale, Auditory Hal ucination Subscale of Psychotic Symptom Rating Scale, Positive and Negative Symptom Scale-Auditory Hal ucination item, and Hal ucination Change Scale. Secondary outcomes included response rate, global mental state, adverse effects and cognitive function. RESULTS: Seventeen studies addressing repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment of schizophrenia spectrum disorders were screened, with controls receiving sham stimulation. Al data were completely effective, involving 398 patients. Overal mean weighted effect size for repeti-tive transcranial magnetic stimulation versus sham stimulation was statistical y significant (MD =-0.42, 95%CI: -0.64 to -0.20, P = 0.000 2). Patients receiving repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation responded more frequently than sham stimulation (OR = 2.94, 95%CI: 1.39 to 6.24, P =0.005). No significant differences were found

Anhedonia as a clinical correlate of suicidal thoughts in clinical ketamine trials.

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Ballard, Elizabeth D; Wills, Kathleen; Lally, Níall; Richards, Erica M; Luckenbaugh, David A; Walls, Tessa; Ameli, Rezvan; Niciu, Mark J; Brutsche, Nancy E; Park, Lawrence; Zarate, Carlos A

2017-08-15

Identifying clinical correlates associated with reduced suicidal ideation may highlight new avenues for the treatment of suicidal thoughts. Anhedonia occurs across psychiatric diagnoses and has been associated with specific neural circuits in response to rapid-acting treatments, such as ketamine. This analysis sought to evaluate whether reductions in suicidal ideation after ketamine administration were related to reduced levels of anhedonia, independent of depressive symptoms. This post-hoc analysis included treatment-resistant patients with either major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar disorder (BD) from several clinical trials of ketamine. Anhedonia was assessed using a subscale of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS). The outcome of interest was suicidal ideation, as measured by a subscale of the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI5), one day post-ketamine administration. Anhedonia, as measured by the SHAPS, was associated with suicidal thoughts independent of depressive symptoms both before and after ketamine administration. One day post-ketamine administration, improvements on the SHAPS accounted for an additional 13% of the variance in suicidal thought reduction, beyond the influence of depressive symptoms. The BDI anhedonia subscale was not significantly associated with suicidal thoughts after adjusting for depressive symptoms. Data were limited to patients experiencing a major depressive episode and may not be generalizable to patients experiencing an active suicidal crisis. Suicidal thoughts may be related to symptoms of anhedonia independent of other depressive symptoms. These results have implications for the potential mechanisms of action of ketamine on suicidal thoughts. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Distinguishing obsessive features and worries: the role of thought-action fusion.

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Coles, M E; Mennin, D S; Heimberg, R G

2001-08-01

Obsessions are a key feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and chronic worry is the cardinal feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, these two cognitive processes are conceptually very similar, and there is a need to determine how they differ. Recent studies have attempted to identify cognitive processes that may be differentially related to obsessive features and worry. In the current study we proposed that (1) obsessive features and worry could be differentiated and that (2) a measure of the cognitive process thought-action fusion would distinguish between obsessive features and worry, being strongly related to obsessive features after controlling for the effects of worry. These hypotheses were supported in a sample of 173 undergraduate students. Thought-action fusion may be a valuable construct in differentiating between obsessive features and worry.

Five year follow-up of non-psychotic adults with frequent auditory verbal hallucinations : are they still healthy?

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Daalman, K; Diederen, K M J; Hoekema, L; van Lutterveld, R; Sommer, I E C

BACKGROUND: Previously, we described 103 adults (mean age 41 years) who experienced frequent, auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), in the absence of a need for mental healthcare. Importantly, these adults were largely past the peak incidence age for psychosis (15-35 years). It is unclear if these

Altered functional connectivity in lesional peduncular hallucinosis with REM sleep behavior disorder.

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Geddes, Maiya R; Tie, Yanmei; Gabrieli, John D E; McGinnis, Scott M; Golby, Alexandra J; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan

2016-01-01

Brainstem lesions causing peduncular hallucinosis (PH) produce vivid visual hallucinations occasionally accompanied by sleep disorders. Overlapping brainstem regions modulate visual pathways and REM sleep functions via gating of thalamocortical networks. A 66-year-old man with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation developed abrupt-onset complex visual hallucinations with preserved insight and violent dream enactment behavior. Brain MRI showed restricted diffusion in the left rostrodorsal pons suggestive of an acute ischemic stroke. REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) was diagnosed on polysomnography. We investigated the integrity of ponto-geniculate-occipital circuits with seed-based resting-state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) in this patient compared to 46 controls. Rs-fcMRI revealed significantly reduced functional connectivity between the lesion and lateral geniculate nuclei (LGN), and between LGN and visual association cortex compared to controls. Conversely, functional connectivity between brainstem and visual association cortex, and between visual association cortex and prefrontal cortex (PFC) was significantly increased in the patient. Focal damage to the rostrodorsal pons is sufficient to cause RBD and PH in humans, suggesting an overlapping mechanism in both syndromes. This lesion produced a pattern of altered functional connectivity consistent with disrupted visual cortex connectivity via de-afferentation of thalamocortical pathways. Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Personality Disorders

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Personality disorders are a group of mental illnesses. They involve long-term patterns of thoughts and behaviors ... serious problems with relationships and work. People with personality disorders have trouble dealing with everyday stresses and ...

Cognitive and behavioral disorders in Parkinson's disease: an update. II: behavioral disorders.

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Trojano, Luigi; Papagno, Costanza

2018-01-01

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) can experience several behavioral symptoms, such as apathy, agitation, hypersexuality, stereotypic movements, pathological gambling, abuse of antiparkinsonian drugs, and REM sleep behavioral disorders. Psychoses and hallucinations, depression and anxiety disorders, and difficulties in recognizing and experiencing emotions also impair behavior and can cause severe psychosocial problems in patients with PD. Symptoms can be present since early stages of the disease, sometimes even before the appearance of classical motor symptoms, likely in relation to dopamine depletion in basal ganglia and/or to dysfunctions of other neurotrasmitter systems, and others can develop later, in some cases in relation to dopaminergic treatment. In this paper, we review recent literature, with particular attention to the last 5 years, on the main behavioral and emotional disturbances described in PD patients as well as the hypothesized neurofunctional substrate of such impairments. Finally, we provide some suggestions on the most suitable instruments to check and assess PD-associated behavioral defects over time.

Hallucination chez Flaubert : poétique de la perception

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Tomoko Hashimoto

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Notre étude vise à montrer dans le cadre d’une poétique du discours réaliste la manière dont l’« hallucination » fonctionne, se construit et trouve sa signification chez Flaubert. Par quels procédés fait-il surgir des mots le caractère éphémère des images et l’intensité de leur perception ?Notre étude se développera en une forme de triptyque, où le contexte, l’avant-texte et le texte seront examinés. Mais, ces trois points constituant ensemble l’œuvre de Flaubert, nous ne les séparerons pas à...

From Hallucination to Fiction: The Invention of Meaning in Psychosis.

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Lippi, Silvia; Lehaire, Célia; Petit, Laetitia

2016-12-01

Taking their inspiration from a case history, the authors explore the effects of a writing workshop led by a professional writer for patients in a psychiatric hospital. This workshop allowed different modes of transference to unfold: transference to the analyst-therapist, transference to the writer who led the workshop, and transference to the other members of the group. The writing activity created conditions in which there could be a movement from hallucination to delusion-a delusion expressed in fiction through the act of writing. Psychotic patients "invent" a writing that remains unfinished and that relates to the experiences of persecution. Writing thus makes it possible for them to tolerate language, through its transformation into writing.

COMT ValMet moderation of cannabis-induced psychosis: a momentary assessment study of 'switching on' hallucinations in the flow of daily life.

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Henquet, C; Rosa, A; Delespaul, P; Papiol, S; Fananás, L; van Os, J; Myin-Germeys, I

2009-02-01

A functional polymorphism in the catechol-o-methyltransferase gene (COMT Val(158)Met) may moderate the psychosis-inducing effects of cannabis. In order to extend this finding to dynamic effects in the flow of daily life, a momentary assessment study of psychotic symptoms in response to cannabis use was conducted. The experience sampling technique was used to collect data on cannabis use and occurrence of symptoms in daily life in patients with a psychotic disorder (n = 31) and healthy controls (n = 25). Carriers of the COMT Val(158)Met Val allele, but not subjects with the Met/Met genotype, showed an increase in hallucinations after cannabis exposure, conditional on prior evidence of psychometric psychosis liability. The findings confirm that in people with psychometric evidence of psychosis liability, COMT Val(158)Met genotype moderates the association between cannabis and psychotic phenomena in the flow of daily life.

Psychological Therapies for Auditory Hallucinations (Voices): Current Status and Key Directions for Future Research

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Thomas, Neil; Hayward, Mark; Peters, Emmanuelle; van der Gaag, Mark; Bentall, Richard P.; Jenner, Jack; Strauss, Clara; Sommer, Iris E.; Johns, Louise C.; Varese, Filippo; García-Montes, José Manuel; Waters, Flavie; Dodgson, Guy; McCarthy-Jones, Simon

2014-01-01

This report from the International Consortium on Hallucinations Research considers the current status and future directions in research on psychological therapies targeting auditory hallucinations (hearing voices). Therapy approaches have evolved from behavioral and coping-focused interventions, through formulation-driven interventions using methods from cognitive therapy, to a number of contemporary developments. Recent developments include the application of acceptance- and mindfulness-based approaches, and consolidation of methods for working with connections between voices and views of self, others, relationships and personal history. In this article, we discuss the development of therapies for voices and review the empirical findings. This review shows that psychological therapies are broadly effective for people with positive symptoms, but that more research is required to understand the specific application of therapies to voices. Six key research directions are identified: (1) moving beyond the focus on overall efficacy to understand specific therapeutic processes targeting voices, (2) better targeting psychological processes associated with voices such as trauma, cognitive mechanisms, and personal recovery, (3) more focused measurement of the intended outcomes of therapy, (4) understanding individual differences among voice hearers, (5) extending beyond a focus on voices and schizophrenia into other populations and sensory modalities, and (6) shaping interventions for service implementation. PMID:24936081

Focus on psychosis

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Gaebel, Wolfgang; Zielasek, Jürgen

2015-01-01

The concept of psychosis has been shaped by traditions in the concepts of mental disorders during the last 170 years. The term “psychosis” still lacks a unified definition, but denotes a clinical construct composed of several symptoms. Delusions, hallucinations, and thought disorders are the core clinical features. The search for a common denominator of psychotic symptoms points toward combinations of neuropsychological mechanisms resulting in reality distortion. To advance the elucidation of the causes and the pathophysiology of the symptoms of psychosis, a deconstruction of the term into its component symptoms is therefore warranted. Current research is dealing with the delineation from “normality”, the genetic underpinnings, and the causes and pathophysiology of the symptoms of psychosis. PMID:25987859

[Neuropsychiatry Of Movement Disorders].

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Orjuela-Rojas, Juan Manuel; Barrios Vincos, Gustavo Adolfo; Martínez Gallego, Melisa Alejandra

2017-10-01

Movement disorders can be defined as neurological syndromes presenting with excessive or diminished automatic or voluntary movements not related to weakness or spasticity. Both Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD) are well-known examples of these syndromes. The high prevalence of comorbid psychiatric symptoms like depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, hallucinations, delusions, impulsivity, sleep disorders, apathy and cognitive impairment mean that these conditions must be regarded as neuropsychiatric diseases. In this article, we review neuroanatomical (structural and functional), psychopathological and neuropsychological aspects of PD and HD. The role of fronto-subcortical loops in non-motor functions is particularly emphasised in order to understand the clinical spectrum of both diseases, together with the influence of genetic, psychological and psychosocial aspects. A brief description of the main psychopharmacological approaches for both diseases is also included. Copyright © 2017 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

Mental disorders in patients with acute necrotic pancreatitis

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Stefanović Dejan

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction The prognosis of patients with acute pancreatitis is still uncertain regardless of modern therapeutic procedures. It is even more emphasized if the acute pancreatitis is followed by psychic disorders. Objective The aim of the study was to provide an overview of the incidence of certain psychosomatic disorders in patients with acute pancreatitis and evaluate priority therapeutic procedures. Method In this study, we analyzed 16 patients with psychosomatic disorders followed by the episode of acute pancreatitis among 202 patients that were hospitalized in the period from 1993 until 2000. The diagnosis was based on anamnesis, clinical and laboratory findings and diagnostic procedures such as X-ray, US, CT and MRI. Results Among 16 patients with psychosomatic disorders followed by acute pancreatitis, 13 (81.25% patients were operated on and 3 (18.75% patients were medically treated. 6 patients experienced hallucinations, 5 memory deficiency, 16 disorientation and 14 confabulation. Conclusion Psychosomatic disorders in patients with acute pancreatitis require complex medical treatment. Due to the already mentioned complications, the management of these conditions is very difficult and with uncertain.

Bipolar Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Comorbidity

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Necla Keskin

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The comorbidity of bipolar disorder and anxiety disorders is a well known concept. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is the most commonly seen comorbid anxiety disorder in bipolar patients. Some genetic variants, neurotransmitters especially serotonergic systems and second-messenger systems are thought to be responsible for its etiology. Bipolar disorder alters the clinical aspects of obsessive compulsive disorder and is associated with poorer outcome. The determination of comorbidity between bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder is quite important for appropriate clinical management and treatment. [Psikiyatride Guncel Yaklasimlar - Current Approaches in Psychiatry 2014; 6(4.000: 429-437

The Effects of Apomorphine on Visual Perception in Patients With Parkinson Disease and Visual Hallucinations : A Pilot Study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Geerligs, Linda; Meppelink, Anne Marthe; Brouwer, Wiebo H.; van Laar, Teus

2009-01-01

Visual hallucinations (VHs) often occur in patients with advanced Parkinson disease (PD). Overstimulation of dopamine receptors has been considered as one of the causes for VHs in PD. However, several clinical studies suggested that apomorphine infusion did not worsen existing VHs in PD, but could

Insecure attachment is associated with paranoia but not hallucinations in psychotic patients: the mediating role of negative self-esteem.

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Wickham, S; Sitko, K; Bentall, R P

2015-05-01

A growing body of research has investigated associations between insecure attachment styles and psychosis. However, despite good theoretical and epidemiological reasons for hypothesising that insecure attachment may be specifically implicated in paranoid delusions, few studies have considered the role it plays in specific symptoms. We examined the relationship between attachment style, paranoid beliefs and hallucinatory experiences in a sample of 176 people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 113 healthy controls. We also investigated the possible role of negative self-esteem in mediating this association. Insecure attachment predicted paranoia but not hallucinations after co-morbidity between the symptoms was controlled for. Negative self-esteem partially mediated the association between attachment anxiety and clinical paranoia, and fully mediated the relationship between attachment avoidance and clinical paranoia. It may be fruitful to explore attachment representations in psychological treatments for paranoid patients. If future research confirms the importance of disrupted attachment as a risk factor for persecutory delusions, consideration might be given to how to protect vulnerable young people, for example those raised in children's homes.

Repeated measurements of cerebral blood flow in the left superior temporal gyrus reveal tonic hyperactivity in patients with auditory verbal hallucinations: A possible trait marker

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Philipp eHoman

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Background: The left superior temporal gyrus (STG has been suggested to play a key role in auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: Eleven medicated subjects with schizophrenia and medication-resistant auditory verbal hallucinations and 19 healthy controls underwent perfusion magnetic resonance imaging with arterial spin labeling. Three additional repeated measurements were conducted in the patients. Patients underwent a treatment with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS between the first 2 measurements. The main outcome measure was the pooled cerebral blood flow (CBF, which consisted of the regional CBF measurement in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG and the global CBF measurement in the whole brain.Results: Regional CBF in the left STG in patients was significantly higher compared to controls (p < 0.0001 and to the global CBF in patients (p < 0.004 at baseline. Regional CBF in the left STG remained significantly increased compared to the global CBF in patients across time (p < 0.0007, and it remained increased in patients after TMS compared to the baseline CBF in controls (p < 0.0001. After TMS, PANSS (p = 0.003 and PSYRATS (p = 0.01 scores decreased significantly in patients.Conclusions: This study demonstrated tonically increased regional CBF in the left STG in patients with schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations despite a decrease in symptoms after TMS. These findings were consistent with what has previously been termed a trait marker of auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia.

Temporomandibular Disorders and Headache.

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Graff-Radford, Steven B; Abbott, Jeremy J

2016-08-01

Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and primary headaches can be perpetual and debilitating musculoskeletal and neurological disorders. The presence of both can affect up to one-sixth of the population at any one time. Initially, TMDs were thought to be predominantly musculoskeletal disorders, and migraine was thought to be solely a cerebrovascular disorder. The further understanding of their pathophysiology has helped to clarify their clinical presentation. This article focuses on the role of the trigeminal system in associating TMD and migraine. By discussing recent descriptions of prevalence, diagnosis, and treatment of headache and TMD, we will further elucidate this relationship. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Compared with Non-specialized Therapy for Alleviating the Effect of Auditory Hallucinations in People with Reoccurring Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

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Kennedy, Laura; Xyrichis, Andreas

2017-02-01

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is recommended as a psychological intervention for those diagnosed with schizophrenia. The prevalence of auditory hallucinations is high among this group, many of whom are cared for by community mental health teams that may not have easy access to qualified CBT practitioners. This systematic review examined the evidence for the superiority of CBT compared to non-specialized therapy in alleviating auditory hallucinations in community patients with schizophrenia. Two RCTs met the inclusion criteria totaling 105 participants. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS)-Positive Scale was the outcome measure examined. A meta-analysis revealed a pooled mean difference of -0.86 [95 % CI -2.38, 0.65] in favor of CBT, although this did not reach statistical significance. This systematic review concluded there is no clinically significant difference in the reduction of positive symptoms of schizophrenia when treated by CBT compared to a non-specialized therapy for adults experiencing auditory hallucinations.

'The devil lay upon her and held her down'. Hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis described by the Dutch physician Isbrand van Diemerbroeck (1609-1674) in 1664.

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Kompanje, E J O

2008-12-01

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are visual, tactile, auditory or other sensory events, usually brief but sometimes prolonged, that occur at the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnagogic) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic). Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are often associated with sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis occurs immediately prior to falling asleep (hypnagogic paralysis) or upon waking (hypnopompic paralysis). In 1664, the Dutch physician Isbrand Van Diemerbroeck (1609-1674) published a collection of case histories. One history with the title 'Of the Night-Mare' describes the nightly experiences of the 50-year-old woman. This case report is subject of this article. The experiences in this case could without doubt be diagnosed as sleep paralysis accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations. This case from 1664 should be cited as the earliest detailed account of sleep paralysis associated with hypnagogic illusions and as the first observation that sleep paralysis and hypnagogic experiences occur more often in supine position of the body.

Bipolar Disorder.

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Spearing, Melissa

Bipolar disorder, a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person's mood, affects approximately one percent of the population. It commonly occurs in late adolescence and is often unrecognized. The diagnosis of bipolar disorder is made on the basis of symptoms, course of illness, and when possible, family history. Thoughts of suicide are…

The appraisal of intrusive thoughts in relation to obsessional-compulsive symptoms.

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Barrera, Terri L; Norton, Peter J

2011-01-01

Research has shown that although intrusive thoughts occur universally, the majority of individuals do not view intrusive thoughts as being problematic (Freeston, Ladouceur, Thibodeau, & Gagnon, 1991; Rachman & de Silva, 1978; Salkovskis & Harrison, 1984). Thus, it is not the presence of intrusive thoughts that leads to obsessional problems but rather some other factor that plays a role in the development of abnormal obsessions. According to the cognitive model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) put forth by Salkovskis (1985), the crucial factor that differentiates between individuals with OCD and those without is the individual's appraisal of the naturally occurring intrusive thoughts. This study aimed to test Salkovskis's model by examining the role of cognitive biases (responsibility, thought-action fusion, and thought control) as well as distress in the relationship between intrusive thoughts and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in an undergraduate sample of 326 students. An existing measure of intrusive thoughts (the Revised Obsessional Intrusions Inventory) was modified for this study to include a scale of distress associated with each intrusive thought in addition to the current frequency scale. When the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale was used as the measure of OCD symptoms, a significant interaction effect of frequency and distress of intrusive thoughts resulted. Additionally, a significant three-way interaction of Frequency × Distress × Responsibility was found when the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Revised was used as the measure of OCD symptoms. These results indicate that the appraisal of intrusive thoughts is important in predicting OCD symptoms, thus providing support for Salkovskis's model of OCD.

Steroid-Responsive Chronic Schizophreniform Syndrome in the Context of Mildly Increased Antithyroid Peroxidase Antibodies

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Ludger Tebartz van Elst

2017-04-01

Full Text Available BackgroundSchizophreniform syndromes can be divided into primary forms from polygenic causes or secondary forms due to immunological, epileptiform, monogenic, or degenerative causes. Steroid-responsive encephalopathy associated with autoimmune thyroiditis (SREAT is a secondary immunological form associated with increased thyroid antibodies, such as antithyroid peroxidase antibodies and shows a good response to corticosteroids.Case presentationWe present the case of a 41-year-old woman suffering from a schizophreniform syndrome. Starting at the age of 35, she developed psychotic exacerbations with formal thought disorder, acoustic hallucinations, cenesthopathic experiences, and loss of ego boundaries. At the same time, she began to suffer from chronic sexual delusions and olfactory hallucinations, which did not respond to neuroleptic medication. Her levels of antithyroid peroxidase antibodies were slightly increased, and the blood–brain barrier was disturbed. An electroencephalogram (EEG showed intermittent generalized slowing, and cerebral magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI depicted mild temporolateral atrophy. High-dose corticosteroid treatment led to convincing improvement of attentional performance and the disappearance of delusions and olfactory hallucinations.ConclusionSREAT can mimic typical symptoms of schizophreniform syndromes. The increased titer of antithyroid peroxidase antibodies in combination with the EEG slowing, blood–brain barrier dysfunction, and the cMRI alterations were the basis for suspecting an immunological cause in our patient. Chronic delusions, olfactory hallucinations, and cognitive deficits were successfully treated with corticosteroids. The occurrence of secondary immunological forms of schizophreniform syndromes demonstrates the need for innovative immunosuppressive treatment options.

Targeting treatment-resistant auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia with fMRI-based neurofeedback – exploring different cases of schizophrenia

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Miriam S. Dyck

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs are a hallmark of schizophrenia and can significantly impair patients’ emotional, social, and occupational functioning. Despite progress in psychopharmacology, over 25% of schizophrenia patients suffer from treatment-resistant hallucinations. In the search for alternative treatment methods, neurofeedback (NF emerges as a promising therapy tool. NF based on real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI allows voluntarily change of the activity in a selected brain region – even in patients with schizophrenia. This study explored effects of NF on ongoing AVHs. The selected participants were trained in the self-regulation of activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC, a key monitoring region involved in generation and intensity modulation of AVHs. Using rt-fMRI, three right-handed patients, suffering from schizophrenia and ongoing, treatment-resistant AVHs, learned control over ACC activity on three separate days. The effect of NF training on hallucinations’ severity was assessed with the Auditory Vocal Hallucination Rating Scale (AVHRS and on the affective state – with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS.All patients yielded significant up-regulation of the ACC and reported subjective improvement in some aspects of AVHs (AVHRS such as disturbance and suffering from the voices. In general, mood (PANAS improved during NF training, though two patients reported worse mood after NF on the third day. ACC and reward system activity during NF learning and specific effects on mood and symptoms varied across the participants. None of them profited from the last training set in the prolonged 3-session training. Moreover, individual differences emerged in brain networks activated with NF and in symptom changes, which were related to the patients’ symptomatology and disease history.NF based on rt-fMRI seems a promising tool in therapy of AVHs. The patients, who suffered from continuous

Thought-shape fusion in anorexia nervosa: an experimental investigation.

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Radomsky, Adam S; de Silva, Padmal; Todd, Gillian; Treasure, Janet; Murphy, Tara

2002-10-01

Cognitive biases and cognitive distortions have been implicated as important factors in the development and maintenance of many disorders. The concept of thought-shape fusion (TSF) in eating disorders was developed by Shafran, Teachman, Kerry, and Rachman (British Journal of Clinical Psychology 38 (1999) 167) as a variant of thought-action fusion, described by Shafran, Thordarson and Rachman (Journal of Anxiety Disorders 10 (1996) 379). TSF occurs when thinking about eating certain types of food increases a person's estimate of their shape and/or weight, elicits a perception of moral wrongdoing, and/or makes the person feel fat. Shafran et al. (1999) examined both the psychometric and experimental properties of TSF in an undergraduate sample. This paper reports an extension of this work to a clinical group (N=20) of patients with anorexia nervosa. After completing a set of relevant questionnaires, participants were asked to think about a food which they considered extremely fattening. They were then asked to write out the sentence, "I am eating--.", inserting the name of the fattening food in the blank. After being asked to rate their anxiety, guilt, feelings about their weight, morality, etc., participants were given the opportunity to neutralize their statement in any way they chose. The majority of the participants neutralized in ways consistent with the findings of Shafran et al. (1999). The results are discussed in terms of cognitive-behavioural formulations of eating disorders, and of the influence of cognitive biases and cognitive distortions on the processing of information relevant to food, weight and shape in anorexia nervosa.

A Comprehensive Review of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations: Lifetime Prevalence, Correlates and Mechanisms in Healthy and Clinical Individuals

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Saskia ede Leede-Smith

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Over the years, the prevalence of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH has been documented across the lifespan in varied contexts, and with a range of potential long-term outcomes. Initially the emphasis focused on whether AVHs conferred risk for psychosis. However, recent research has identified significant differences in the presentation and outcomes of AVH in patients compared to those in non-clinical populations. For this reason, it has been suggested that auditory hallucinations are an entity by themselves and not necessarily indicative of transition along the psychosis continuum. This review will examine the presentation of auditory hallucinations across the life span. The stages described include childhood, adolescence, adult non-clinical populations, hypnaogogic/hypnopompic experiences, high schizotypal traits, schizophrenia, substance induced AVH, AVH in epilepsy and AVH in the elderly. In children, need for care depends upon whether the child associates the voice with negative beliefs, appraisals and other symptoms of psychosis. This theme appears to carry right through to healthy voice hearers in adulthood, in which a negative impact of the voice usually only exists if the individual has negative experiences as a result of their voice(s. This includes features of the voices such as the negative content, frequency and emotional valence as well as anxiety and depression, independently or caused by voices presence. It seems possible that the mechanisms which maintain AVH in non-clinical populations are different from those which are behind AVH presentations in psychotic illness. For example; the existence of maladaptive coping strategies in patient populations is one significant difference between clinical and non-clinical groups which is associated with a need for care. Whether or not these mechanisms start out the same and have differential trajectories is not yet evidenced. Future research needs to focus on the comparison of underlying

From Thought to Action: How the Interplay Between Neuroscience and Phenomenology Changed Our Understanding of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

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Bernardo eBarahona-Correa

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The understanding of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD has evolved with the knowledge of behavior, the brain, and their relationship. Modern views of OCD as a neuropsychiatric disorder originated from early lesion studies, with more recent models incorporating detailed neuropsychological findings, such as perseveration in set-shifting tasks, and findings of altered brain structure and function, namely of orbitofrontal corticostriatal circuits and their limbic connections. Interestingly, as neurobiological models of OCD evolved from cortical and cognitive to sub-cortical and behavioral, the focus of OCD phenomenology also moved from thought control and contents to new concepts rooted in animal models of action control. Most recently, the proposed analogy between habitual action control and compulsive behavior has led to the hypothesis that individuals suffering from OCD may be predisposed to rely excessively on habitual rather than on goal-directed behavioral strategies. Alternatively, compulsions have been proposed to result either from hyper-valuation of certain actions and/or their outcomes, or from excessive uncertainty in the monitoring of action performance, both leading to perseveration in prepotent actions such as washing or checking. In short, the last decades have witnessed a formidable renovation in the pathophysiology, phenomenology, and even semantics, of OCD. Nevertheless, such progress is challenged by several caveats, not least psychopathological oversimplification and overgeneralization of animal to human extrapolations. Here we present an historical overview of the understanding of OCD, highlighting converging studies and trends in neuroscience, psychiatry and neuropsychology, and how they influenced current perspectives on the nosology and phenomenology of this disorder.

Use of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment in psychiatry.

Science.gov (United States)

Aleman, André

2013-08-01

The potential of noninvasive neurostimulation by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for improving psychiatric disorders has been studied increasingly over the past two decades. This is especially the case for major depression and for auditory-verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia. The present review briefly describes the background of this novel treatment modality and summarizes evidence from clinical trials into the efficacy of rTMS for depression and hallucinations. Evidence for efficacy in depression is stronger than for hallucinations, although a number of studies have reported clinically relevant improvements for hallucinations too. Different stimulation parameters (frequency, duration, location of stimulation) are discussed. There is a paucity of research into other psychiatric disorders, but initial evidence suggests that rTMS may also hold promise for the treatment of negative symptoms in schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. It can be concluded that rTMS induces alterations in neural networks relevant for psychiatric disorders and that more research is needed to elucidate efficacy and underlying mechanisms of action.

Exploring thought leadership, thought liberation and critical ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

It is argued that any discussion of Africa's social and economic development has to take into account the three critical issues that remain pressing constraints for the further advancement of well-being in Africa: thought leadership, thought liberation and critical consciousness. These three 'ingredients' should anchor aspects ...

Speech graphs provide a quantitative measure of thought disorder in psychosis.

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Mota, Natalia B; Vasconcelos, Nivaldo A P; Lemos, Nathalia; Pieretti, Ana C; Kinouchi, Osame; Cecchi, Guillermo A; Copelli, Mauro; Ribeiro, Sidarta

2012-01-01

Psychosis has various causes, including mania and schizophrenia. Since the differential diagnosis of psychosis is exclusively based on subjective assessments of oral interviews with patients, an objective quantification of the speech disturbances that characterize mania and schizophrenia is in order. In principle, such quantification could be achieved by the analysis of speech graphs. A graph represents a network with nodes connected by edges; in speech graphs, nodes correspond to words and edges correspond to semantic and grammatical relationships. To quantify speech differences related to psychosis, interviews with schizophrenics, manics and normal subjects were recorded and represented as graphs. Manics scored significantly higher than schizophrenics in ten graph measures. Psychopathological symptoms such as logorrhea, poor speech, and flight of thoughts were grasped by the analysis even when verbosity differences were discounted. Binary classifiers based on speech graph measures sorted schizophrenics from manics with up to 93.8% of sensitivity and 93.7% of specificity. In contrast, sorting based on the scores of two standard psychiatric scales (BPRS and PANSS) reached only 62.5% of sensitivity and specificity. The results demonstrate that alterations of the thought process manifested in the speech of psychotic patients can be objectively measured using graph-theoretical tools, developed to capture specific features of the normal and dysfunctional flow of thought, such as divergence and recurrence. The quantitative analysis of speech graphs is not redundant with standard psychometric scales but rather complementary, as it yields a very accurate sorting of schizophrenics and manics. Overall, the results point to automated psychiatric diagnosis based not on what is said, but on how it is said.

Speech graphs provide a quantitative measure of thought disorder in psychosis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Natalia B Mota

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Psychosis has various causes, including mania and schizophrenia. Since the differential diagnosis of psychosis is exclusively based on subjective assessments of oral interviews with patients, an objective quantification of the speech disturbances that characterize mania and schizophrenia is in order. In principle, such quantification could be achieved by the analysis of speech graphs. A graph represents a network with nodes connected by edges; in speech graphs, nodes correspond to words and edges correspond to semantic and grammatical relationships. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To quantify speech differences related to psychosis, interviews with schizophrenics, manics and normal subjects were recorded and represented as graphs. Manics scored significantly higher than schizophrenics in ten graph measures. Psychopathological symptoms such as logorrhea, poor speech, and flight of thoughts were grasped by the analysis even when verbosity differences were discounted. Binary classifiers based on speech graph measures sorted schizophrenics from manics with up to 93.8% of sensitivity and 93.7% of specificity. In contrast, sorting based on the scores of two standard psychiatric scales (BPRS and PANSS reached only 62.5% of sensitivity and specificity. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The results demonstrate that alterations of the thought process manifested in the speech of psychotic patients can be objectively measured using graph-theoretical tools, developed to capture specific features of the normal and dysfunctional flow of thought, such as divergence and recurrence. The quantitative analysis of speech graphs is not redundant with standard psychometric scales but rather complementary, as it yields a very accurate sorting of schizophrenics and manics. Overall, the results point to automated psychiatric diagnosis based not on what is said, but on how it is said.

Voxel-based gray and white matter morphometry correlates of hallucinations in schizophrenia : The superior temporal gyrus does not stand alone

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Tol, Marie-Jose; van der Meer, Lisette; Bruggeman, Richard; Modinos, Gemma; Knegtering, Henderikus; Aleman, André

2014-01-01

Introduction: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in schizophrenia (SZ) have been proposed to result from abnormal local, interregional and interhemispheric integration of brain signals in regions involved in language production and perception. This abnormal functional integration may find its base

Abnormal Degree Centrality of Bilateral Putamen and Left Superior Frontal Gyrus in Schizophrenia with Auditory Hallucinations: A Resting-state Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.

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Chen, Cheng; Wang, Hui-Ling; Wu, Shi-Hao; Huang, Huan; Zou, Ji-Lin; Chen, Jun; Jiang, Tian-Zi; Zhou, Yuan; Wang, Gao-Hua

2015-12-05

Dysconnectivity hypothesis of schizophrenia has been increasingly emphasized. Recent researches showed that this dysconnectivity might be related to occurrence of auditory hallucination (AH). However, there is still no consistent conclusion. This study aimed to explore intrinsic dysconnectivity pattern of whole-brain functional networks at voxel level in schizophrenic with AH. Auditory hallucinated patients group (n = 42 APG), no hallucinated patients group (n = 42 NPG) and normal controls (n = 84 NCs) were analyzed by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The functional connectivity metrics index (degree centrality [DC]) across the entire brain networks was calculated and evaluated among three groups. DC decreased in the bilateral putamen and increased in the left superior frontal gyrus in all the patients. However, in APG, the changes of DC were more obvious compared with NPG. Symptomology scores were negatively correlated with the DC of bilateral putamen in all patients. AH score of APG positively correlated with the DC in left superior frontal gyrus but negatively correlated with the DC in bilateral putamen. Our findings corroborated that schizophrenia was characterized by functional dysconnectivity, and the abnormal DC in bilateral putamen and left superior frontal gyrus might be crucial in the occurrence of AH.

Brain mechanisms for loss of awareness of thought and movement

Science.gov (United States)

Oakley, David A.; Halligan, Peter W.; Mehta, Mitul A.; Deeley, Quinton

2017-01-01

Abstract Loss or reduction of awareness is common in neuropsychiatric disorders and culturally influenced dissociative phenomena but the underlying brain mechanisms are poorly understood. fMRI was combined with suggestions for automatic writing in 18 healthy highly hypnotically suggestible individuals in a within-subjects design to determine whether clinical alterations in awareness of thought and movement can be experimentally modelled and studied independently of illness. Subjective ratings of control, ownership, and awareness of thought and movement, and fMRI data were collected following suggestions for thought insertion and alien control of writing movement, with and without loss of awareness. Subjective ratings confirmed that suggestions were effective. At the neural level, our main findings indicated that loss of awareness for both thought and movement during automatic writing was associated with reduced activation in a predominantly left-sided posterior cortical network including BA 7 (superior parietal lobule and precuneus), and posterior cingulate cortex, involved in self-related processing and awareness of the body in space. Reduced activity in posterior parietal cortices may underlie specific clinical and cultural alterations in awareness of thought and movement. Clinically, these findings may assist development of imaging assessments for loss of awareness of psychological origin, and interventions such as neurofeedback. PMID:28338742

Thought 2 Talk

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hendricks, Vincent F.

Thought2Talk is a crash course on argument, reasoning and logical method honoring the Swedish poet and Bishop of Lund, Esaias Tegnér, who once said: The words and thoughts of men are born together: To speak obscurely is to think obscurely. In 100 humorous yet erudite pages, Thought2Talk takes the...... the reader through key concepts like statement, argument, validity, fallacy, modality and demonstration.......Thought2Talk is a crash course on argument, reasoning and logical method honoring the Swedish poet and Bishop of Lund, Esaias Tegnér, who once said: The words and thoughts of men are born together: To speak obscurely is to think obscurely. In 100 humorous yet erudite pages, Thought2Talk takes...

Psychotic symptoms in narcolepsy: phenomenology and a comparison with schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Fortuyn, Hal A Droogleever; Lappenschaar, G A; Nienhuis, Fokko J; Furer, Joop W; Hodiamont, Paul P; Rijnders, Cees A; Lammers, Gert Jan; Renier, Willy O; Buitelaar, Jan K; Overeem, Sebastiaan

2009-01-01

Patients with narcolepsy often experience pervasive hypnagogic hallucinations, sometimes even leading to confusion with schizophrenia. We aimed to provide a detailed qualitative description of hypnagogic hallucinations and other "psychotic" symptoms in patients with narcolepsy and contrast these with schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. We also compared the prevalence of formal psychotic disorders between narcolepsy patients and controls. We used SCAN 2.1 interviews to compare psychotic symptoms between 60 patients with narcolepsy, 102 with schizophrenia and 120 matched population controls. In addition, qualitative data was collected to enable a detailed description of hypnagogic hallucinations in narcolepsy. There were clear differences in the pattern of hallucinatory experiences in narcolepsy vs. schizophrenia patients. Narcoleptics reported multisensory "holistic" hallucinations rather than the predominantly verbal-auditory sensory mode of schizophrenia patients. Psychotic symptoms such as delusions were not more frequent in narcolepsy compared to population controls. In addition, the prevalence of formal psychotic disorders was not increased in patients with narcolepsy. Almost half of narcoleptics reported moderate interference with functioning due to hypnagogic hallucinations, mostly due to related anxiety. Hypnagogic hallucinations in narcolepsy can be differentiated on a phenomenological basis from hallucinations in schizophrenia which is useful in differential diagnostic dilemmas.

Resting-state functional connectivity in medication-naïve schizophrenia patients with and without auditory verbal hallucinations : A preliminary report

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chang, Xiao; Collin, Guusje; Xi, Yibin; Cui, Longbiao; Scholtens, Lianne H.; Sommer, Iris E.; Wang, Huaning; Yin, Hong; Kahn, René S.; van den Heuvel, Martijn P.

2017-01-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are a cardinal feature of schizophrenia that has been associated with activation in language processing areas, in concert with higher-order cognitive brain networks. It remains to be determined whether, and if so how, the functional dynamics between these brain

From local pixel structure to global image super-resolution: a new face hallucination framework.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Yu; Lam, Kin-Man; Qiu, Guoping; Shen, Tingzhi

2011-02-01

We have developed a new face hallucination framework termed from local pixel structure to global image super-resolution (LPS-GIS). Based on the assumption that two similar face images should have similar local pixel structures, the new framework first uses the input low-resolution (LR) face image to search a face database for similar example high-resolution (HR) faces in order to learn the local pixel structures for the target HR face. It then uses the input LR face and the learned pixel structures as priors to estimate the target HR face. We present a three-step implementation procedure for the framework. Step 1 searches the database for K example faces that are the most similar to the input, and then warps the K example images to the input using optical flow. Step 2 uses the warped HR version of the K example faces to learn the local pixel structures for the target HR face. An effective method for learning local pixel structures from an individual face, and an adaptive procedure for fusing the local pixel structures of different example faces to reduce the influence of warping errors, have been developed. Step 3 estimates the target HR face by solving a constrained optimization problem by means of an iterative procedure. Experimental results show that our new method can provide good performances for face hallucination, both in terms of reconstruction error and visual quality; and that it is competitive with existing state-of-the-art methods.

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations during sleep paralysis: neurological and cultural construction of the night-mare.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheyne, J A; Rueffer, S D; Newby-Clark, I R

1999-09-01

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs) accompanying sleep paralysis (SP) are often cited as sources of accounts of supernatural nocturnal assaults and paranormal experiences. Descriptions of such experiences are remarkably consistent across time and cultures and consistent also with known mechanisms of REM states. A three-factor structural model of HHEs based on their relations both to cultural narratives and REM neurophysiology is developed and tested with several large samples. One factor, labeled Intruder, consisting of sensed presence, fear, and auditory and visual hallucinations, is conjectured to originate in a hypervigilant state initiated in the midbrain. Another factor, Incubus, comprising pressure on the chest, breathing difficulties, and pain, is attributed to effects of hyperpolarization of motoneurons on perceptions of respiration. These two factors have in common an implied alien "other" consistent with occult narratives identified in numerous contemporary and historical cultures. A third factor, labeled Unusual Bodily Experiences, consisting of floating/flying sensations, out-of-body experiences, and feelings of bliss, is related to physically impossible experiences generated by conflicts of endogenous and exogenous activation related to body position, orientation, and movement. Implications of this last factor for understanding of orientational primacy in self-consciousness are considered. Central features of the model developed here are consistent with recent work on hallucinations associated with hypnosis and schizophrenia. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.

A comprehensive review of auditory verbal hallucinations: lifetime prevalence, correlates and mechanisms in healthy and clinical individuals.

Science.gov (United States)

de Leede-Smith, Saskia; Barkus, Emma

2013-01-01

Over the years, the prevalence of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) have been documented across the lifespan in varied contexts, and with a range of potential long-term outcomes. Initially the emphasis focused on whether AVHs conferred risk for psychosis. However, recent research has identified significant differences in the presentation and outcomes of AVH in patients compared to those in non-clinical populations. For this reason, it has been suggested that auditory hallucinations are an entity by themselves and not necessarily indicative of transition along the psychosis continuum. This review will examine the presentation of auditory hallucinations across the life span, as well as in various clinical groups. The stages described include childhood, adolescence, adult non-clinical populations, hypnagogic/hypnopompic experiences, high schizotypal traits, schizophrenia, substance induced AVH, AVH in epilepsy, and AVH in the elderly. In children, need for care depends upon whether the child associates the voice with negative beliefs, appraisals and other symptoms of psychosis. This theme appears to carry right through to healthy voice hearers in adulthood, in which a negative impact of the voice usually only exists if the individual has negative experiences as a result of their voice(s). This includes features of the voices such as the negative content, frequency, and emotional valence as well as anxiety and depression, independently or caused by voices presence. It seems possible that the mechanisms which maintain AVH in non-clinical populations are different from those which are behind AVH presentations in psychotic illness. For example, the existence of maladaptive coping strategies in patient populations is one significant difference between clinical and non-clinical groups which is associated with a need for care. Whether or not these mechanisms start out the same and have differential trajectories is not yet evidenced. Future research needs to focus on the

A comprehensive review of auditory verbal hallucinations: lifetime prevalence, correlates and mechanisms in healthy and clinical individuals

Science.gov (United States)

de Leede-Smith, Saskia; Barkus, Emma

2013-01-01

Over the years, the prevalence of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) have been documented across the lifespan in varied contexts, and with a range of potential long-term outcomes. Initially the emphasis focused on whether AVHs conferred risk for psychosis. However, recent research has identified significant differences in the presentation and outcomes of AVH in patients compared to those in non-clinical populations. For this reason, it has been suggested that auditory hallucinations are an entity by themselves and not necessarily indicative of transition along the psychosis continuum. This review will examine the presentation of auditory hallucinations across the life span, as well as in various clinical groups. The stages described include childhood, adolescence, adult non-clinical populations, hypnagogic/hypnopompic experiences, high schizotypal traits, schizophrenia, substance induced AVH, AVH in epilepsy, and AVH in the elderly. In children, need for care depends upon whether the child associates the voice with negative beliefs, appraisals and other symptoms of psychosis. This theme appears to carry right through to healthy voice hearers in adulthood, in which a negative impact of the voice usually only exists if the individual has negative experiences as a result of their voice(s). This includes features of the voices such as the negative content, frequency, and emotional valence as well as anxiety and depression, independently or caused by voices presence. It seems possible that the mechanisms which maintain AVH in non-clinical populations are different from those which are behind AVH presentations in psychotic illness. For example, the existence of maladaptive coping strategies in patient populations is one significant difference between clinical and non-clinical groups which is associated with a need for care. Whether or not these mechanisms start out the same and have differential trajectories is not yet evidenced. Future research needs to focus on the

Decreased middle temporal gyrus connectivity in the language network in schizophrenia patients with auditory verbal hallucinations.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Linchuan; Li, Baojuan; Wang, Huaning; Li, Liang; Liao, Qimei; Liu, Yang; Bao, Xianghong; Liu, Wenlei; Yin, Hong; Lu, Hongbing; Tan, Qingrong

2017-07-13

As the most common symptoms of schizophrenia, the long-term persistence of obstinate auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) brings about great mental pain to patients. Neuroimaging studies of schizophrenia have indicated that AVHs were associated with altered functional and structural connectivity within the language network. However, effective connectivity that could reflect directed information flow within this network and is of great importance to understand the neural mechanisms of the disorder remains largely unknown. In this study, we utilized stochastic dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to investigate directed connections within the language network in schizophrenia patients with and without AVHs. Thirty-six patients with schizophrenia (18 with AVHs and 18 without AVHs), and 37 healthy controls participated in the current resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. The results showed that the connection from the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) to left middle temporal gyrus (LMTG) was significantly decreased in patients with AVHs compared to those without AVHs. Meanwhile, the effective connection from the left inferior parietal lobule (LIPL) to LMTG was significantly decreased compared to the healthy controls. Our findings suggest aberrant pattern of causal interactions within the language network in patients with AVHs, indicating that the hypoconnectivity or disrupted connection from frontal to temporal speech areas might be critical for the pathological basis of AVHs. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Are screening instruments valid for psychotic-like experiences? A validation study of screening questions for psychotic-like experiences using in-depth clinical interview.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Kelleher, Ian

2012-02-01

Individuals who report psychotic-like experiences are at increased risk of future clinical psychotic disorder. They constitute a unique "high-risk" group for studying the developmental trajectory to schizophrenia and related illnesses. Previous research has used screening instruments to identify this high-risk group, but the validity of these instruments has not yet been established. We administered a screening questionnaire with 7 items designed to assess psychotic-like experiences to 334 adolescents aged 11-13 years. Detailed clinical interviews were subsequently carried out with a sample of these adolescents. We calculated sensitivity and specificity and positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for each screening question for the specific symptom it enquired about and also in relation to any psychotic-like experience. The predictive power varied substantially between items, with the question on auditory hallucinations ("Have you ever heard voices or sounds that no one else can hear?") providing the best predictive power. For interview-verified auditory hallucinations specifically, this question had a PPV of 71.4% and an NPV of 90.4%. When assessed for its predictive power for any psychotic-like experience (including, but not limited to, auditory hallucinations), it provided a PPV of 100% and an NPV of 88.4%. Two further questions-relating to visual hallucinations and paranoid thoughts-also demonstrated good predictive power for psychotic-like experiences. Our results suggest that it may be possible to screen the general adolescent population for psychotic-like experiences with a high degree of accuracy using a short self-report questionnaire.

Are screening instruments valid for psychotic-like experiences? A validation study of screening questions for psychotic-like experiences using in-depth clinical interview.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Kelleher, Ian

2011-03-01

Individuals who report psychotic-like experiences are at increased risk of future clinical psychotic disorder. They constitute a unique "high-risk" group for studying the developmental trajectory to schizophrenia and related illnesses. Previous research has used screening instruments to identify this high-risk group, but the validity of these instruments has not yet been established. We administered a screening questionnaire with 7 items designed to assess psychotic-like experiences to 334 adolescents aged 11-13 years. Detailed clinical interviews were subsequently carried out with a sample of these adolescents. We calculated sensitivity and specificity and positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for each screening question for the specific symptom it enquired about and also in relation to any psychotic-like experience. The predictive power varied substantially between items, with the question on auditory hallucinations ("Have you ever heard voices or sounds that no one else can hear?") providing the best predictive power. For interview-verified auditory hallucinations specifically, this question had a PPV of 71.4% and an NPV of 90.4%. When assessed for its predictive power for any psychotic-like experience (including, but not limited to, auditory hallucinations), it provided a PPV of 100% and an NPV of 88.4%. Two further questions-relating to visual hallucinations and paranoid thoughts-also demonstrated good predictive power for psychotic-like experiences. Our results suggest that it may be possible to screen the general adolescent population for psychotic-like experiences with a high degree of accuracy using a short self-report questionnaire.

[Structural correlation of schizophrenic thought and language disorders with delusional perception and variations of intentionality].

Science.gov (United States)

Holm-Hadulla, R

1988-01-01

This study originated from a phenomenological and speech-act theoretical concept of schizophrenic concretism. An experimental study was performed showing a highly significant lack in the schizophrenic patients' ability to use metaphors correctly. Basing on the interpretation of proverbs, the hypothesis is rejected that false interpretations of schizophrenic patients are due to intermingling of personal conflicts. On the other hand, it could be shown that concretistic interpretations of proverbs represent an avoidance of conflicts. The concepts of "substitution" and "transfer" enabled us to measure pathological concreteness and "deconflictualisation". The differentiation between schizophrenic and nonpsychotic patients was found to be highly significant. In a complementary study it could be shown that the chronic schizophrenics' disability to transfer images of proverbs to an interpersonally relevant context does not differ significantly from that of patients with their first schizophrenic episode. Discussing our empirical findings, we try to show that the concretistic reduction of thought and speech is also a paradigma of delusion. The "incorrigibility" of schizophrenic delusion was seen to be based on reification of verbal signs and metaphors. After trying to show a connection between the concretistic "Lebensform" (Wittgenstein) and the disordered intentionality of schizophrenic patients, pointers towards psychotherapeutic implications are given.

Schizotypal personality disorder inside and outside the schizophrenic spectrum.

Science.gov (United States)

Torgersen, Svenn; Edvardsen, J; Øien, P A; Onstad, S; Skre, I; Lygren, S; Kringlen, E

2002-03-01

The concept of schizotypal personality disorder has been heavily discussed since its introduction into the official classification of mental disorders in DSM-III. The aim of this study was to investigate the difference between schizotypal personality disorder within and outside the genetic spectrum of schizophrenia. Schizotypals with and without schizophrenic cotwins and first-degree relatives were compared, with individuals with other mental disorders and no mental disorders as controls. It appeared that only inadequate rapport and odd communication were more pronounced among schizotypals within, compared to schizotypals outside the schizophrenic spectrum. Schizotypals outside the schizophrenic spectrum, however, scored higher than schizotypals inside the schizophrenic spectrum on ideas of reference, suspiciousness, paranoia, social anxiety, self-damaging acts, chronic anger, free-floating anxiety and sensitivity to rejection. Interestingly, the four last features are seldom observed among schizotypals inside the schizophrenic spectrum. Monozygotic non-schizophrenic cotwins of schizophrenics score high on inadequate rapport, odd communication, social isolation and delusions/hallucinations. Monozygotic non-schizophrenic cotwins of schizotypals outside the schizophrenic genetic spectrum score high on illusions, depersonalization, derealization and magical thinking. Negative schizotypal features appear to be inside the schizophrenic spectrum, while positive borderline-like features are outside having another genetic endowment.

Genome-wide analysis of adolescent psychotic-like experiences shows genetic overlap with psychiatric disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Pain, Oliver; Dudbridge, Frank; Cardno, Alastair G; Freeman, Daniel; Lu, Yi; Lundstrom, Sebastian; Lichtenstein, Paul; Ronald, Angelica

2018-03-31

This study aimed to test for overlap in genetic influences between psychotic-like experience traits shown by adolescents in the community, and clinically-recognized psychiatric disorders in adulthood, specifically schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. The full spectra of psychotic-like experience domains, both in terms of their severity and type (positive, cognitive, and negative), were assessed using self- and parent-ratings in three European community samples aged 15-19 years (Final N incl. siblings = 6,297-10,098). A mega-genome-wide association study (mega-GWAS) for each psychotic-like experience domain was performed. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-heritability of each psychotic-like experience domain was estimated using genomic-relatedness-based restricted maximum-likelihood (GREML) and linkage disequilibrium- (LD-) score regression. Genetic overlap between specific psychotic-like experience domains and schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression was assessed using polygenic risk score (PRS) and LD-score regression. GREML returned SNP-heritability estimates of 3-9% for psychotic-like experience trait domains, with higher estimates for less skewed traits (Anhedonia, Cognitive Disorganization) than for more skewed traits (Paranoia and Hallucinations, Parent-rated Negative Symptoms). Mega-GWAS analysis identified one genome-wide significant association for Anhedonia within IDO2 but which did not replicate in an independent sample. PRS analysis revealed that the schizophrenia PRS significantly predicted all adolescent psychotic-like experience trait domains (Paranoia and Hallucinations only in non-zero scorers). The major depression PRS significantly predicted Anhedonia and Parent-rated Negative Symptoms in adolescence. Psychotic-like experiences during adolescence in the community show additive genetic effects and partly share genetic influences with clinically-recognized psychiatric disorders, specifically schizophrenia and

Possible role of biochemiluminescent photons for lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)-induced phosphenes and visual hallucinations.

Science.gov (United States)

Kapócs, Gábor; Scholkmann, Felix; Salari, Vahid; Császár, Noémi; Szőke, Henrik; Bókkon, István

2017-01-01

Today, there is an increased interest in research on lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) because it may offer new opportunities in psychotherapy under controlled settings. The more we know about how a drug works in the brain, the more opportunities there will be to exploit it in medicine. Here, based on our previously published papers and investigations, we suggest that LSD-induced visual hallucinations/phosphenes may be due to the transient enhancement of bioluminescent photons in the early retinotopic visual system in blind as well as healthy people.

Dysfunctional Metacognitive Beliefs in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Zeinodini, Zahra; Sedighi, Sahar; Rahimi, Mandana Baghertork; Noorbakhsh, Simasadat; Esfahani, Sepideh Rajezi

2016-01-01

The present study aims to examine the correlation of body dysmorphic disorder, with metacognitive subscales, metaworry and thought-fusion. The study was conducted in a correlation framework. Sample included 155 high school students in Isfahan, Iran in 2013-2014, gathered through convenience sampling. To gather data about BDD, Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for BDD was applied. Then, Meta Cognitive Questionnaire, Metaworry Questionnaire, and Thought-Fusion Inventory were used to assess metacognitive subscales, metaworry and thought-fusion. Data obtained from this study were analyzed using Pearson correlation and multiple regressions in SPSS 18. Result indicated YBOCS-BDD scores had a significant correlation with scores from MCQ (Pdysmorphic disorder was significantly related to metacognitive subscales, metaworry, and thought fusion in high school students in Isfahan, which is in line with previous studies. A deeper understanding of these processes can broaden theory and treatment of BDD, thereby improve the lives of sufferers and potentially protect others from developing this devastating disorder. PMID:26493420

Mood instability and impulsivity as trait predictors of suicidal thoughts.

Science.gov (United States)

Peters, Evyn M; Balbuena, Lloyd; Marwaha, Steven; Baetz, Marilyn; Bowen, Rudy

2016-12-01

Impulsivity, the tendency to act quickly without adequate planning or concern for consequences, is a commonly cited risk factor for suicidal thoughts and behaviour. There are many definitions of impulsivity and how it relates to suicidality is not well understood. Mood instability, which describes frequent fluctuations of mood over time, is a concept related to impulsivity that may help explain this relationship. The purpose of this study was to determine whether impulsivity could predict suicidal thoughts after controlling for mood instability. This study utilized longitudinal data from the 2000 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (N = 2,406). There was a time interval of 18 months between the two waves of the study. Trait impulsivity and mood instability were measured with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders. Logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate baseline impulsivity and mood instability as predictors of future suicidal thoughts. Impulsivity significantly predicted the presence of suicidal thoughts, but this effect became non-significant with mood instability included in the same model. Impulsivity may be a redundant concept when predicting future suicidal thoughts if mood instability is considered. The significance is that research and therapy focusing on mood instability along with impulsivity may be useful in treating the suicidal patient. Mood instability and impulsivity both predict future suicidal thoughts. Impulsivity does not predict suicidal thoughts after controlling for mood instability. Assessing and treating mood instability could be important aspects of suicide prevention and risk management. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder and rapid eye movement sleep without atonia in narcolepsy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dauvilliers, Yves; Jennum, Poul; Plazzi, Giuseppe

2013-01-01

Narcolepsy is a rare disabling hypersomnia disorder that may include cataplexy, sleep paralysis, hypnagogic hallucinations, and sleep-onset rapid eye movement (REM) periods, but also disrupted nighttime sleep by nocturnal awakenings, and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). RBD is characterized...... by dream-enacting behavior and impaired motor inhibition during REM sleep (REM sleep without atonia, RSWA). RBD is commonly associated with neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinsonisms, but is also reported in narcolepsy in up to 60% of patients. RBD in patients with narcolepsy is, however...... with narcolepsy often present dissociated sleep features including RSWA, increased density of phasic chin EMG and frequent shift from REM to NREM sleep, with or without associated clinical RBD. Most patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy lack the hypocretin neurons in the lateral hypothalamus. Tonic and phasic...

Functional studies of the human auditory cortex, auditory memory and musical hallucinations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goycoolea, Marcos; Mena, Ismael; Neubauer, Sonia

2004-01-01

Objectives. 1. To determine which areas of the cerebral cortex are activated stimulating the left ear with pure tones, and what type of stimulation occurs (eg. excitatory or inhibitory) in these different areas. 2. To use this information as an initial step to develop a normal functional data base for future studies. 3. To try to determine if there is a biological substrate to the process of recalling previous auditory perceptions and if possible, suggest a locus for auditory memory. Method. Brain perfusion single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) evaluation was conducted: 1-2) Using auditory stimulation with pure tones in 4 volunteers with normal hearing. 3) In a patient with bilateral profound hearing loss who had auditory perception of previous musical experiences; while injected with Tc99m HMPAO while she was having the sensation of hearing a well known melody. Results. Both in the patient with auditory hallucinations and the normal controls -stimulated with pure tones- there was a statistically significant increase in perfusion in Brodmann's area 39, more intense on the right side (right to left p < 0.05). With a lesser intensity there was activation in the adjacent area 40 and there was intense activation also in the executive frontal cortex areas 6, 8, 9, and 10 of Brodmann. There was also activation of area 7 of Brodmann; an audio-visual association area; more marked on the right side in the patient and the normal stimulated controls. In the subcortical structures there was also marked activation in the patient with hallucinations in both lentiform nuclei, thalamus and caudate nuclei also more intense in the right hemisphere, 5, 4.7 and 4.2 S.D. above the mean respectively and 5, 3.3, and 3 S.D. above the normal mean in the left hemisphere respectively. Similar findings were observed in normal controls. Conclusions. After auditory stimulation with pure tones in the left ear of normal female volunteers, there is bilateral activation of area 39

The factor structure and clinical utility of formal thought disorder in first episode psychosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Roche, Eric; Lyne, John Paul; O'Donoghue, Brian; Segurado, Ricardo; Kinsella, Anthony; Hannigan, Ailish; Kelly, Brendan D; Malone, Kevin; Clarke, Mary

2015-10-01

Formal thought disorder (FTD) is a core feature of psychosis, however there are gaps in our knowledge about its prevalence and factor structure. We had two aims: first, to establish the factor structure of FTD; second, to explore the clinical utility of dimensions of FTD in order to further the understanding of its nosology. A cross-validation study was undertaken to establish the factor structure of FTD in first episode psychosis (FEP). The relative utility of FTD categories vs. dimensions across diagnostic categories was investigated. The prevalence of clinically significant FTD in this FEP sample was 21%, although 41% showed evidence of disorganised speech, 20% displayed verbosity and 24% displayed impoverished speech. A 3-factor model was identified as the best fit for FTD, with disorganisation, poverty and verbosity dimensions (GFI=0.99, RMR=0.07). These dimensions of FTD accurately distinguished affective from non-affective diagnostic categories. A categorical approach to FTD assessment was useful in identifying markers of clinical acuteness, as identified by short duration of untreated psychosis (OR=2.94, P<0.01) and inpatient treatment status (OR=3.98, P<0.01). FTD is moderately prevalent and multi-dimensional in FEP. Employing both a dimensional and categorical assessment of FTD gives valuable clinical information, however there may be a need to revise our conceptualisation of the nosology of FTD. The prognostic value of FTD, as well as its neural basis, requires elucidation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Treatment Related Thoughts Based on Health Belief Model and Medication Nonadherence in Patients who Prescribed Anxiolytics and Antidepressants

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Meltem Meric

2010-10-01

Full Text Available AIM: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between treatment adherence and treatment related thoughts based on health belief model in patients who currently take medication due to depression and anxiety disorder. METHOD: The present study was performed at the Psychiatry Department of a teaching hospital. The sample of the study consisted from 112 individuals who take medications due to depression and anxiety disorder. Personal information form and an inquiry form including treatment related thoughts based on health belief model were used to collect data. Chi- Square and Percentages were used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Of the patients, 58.9% were diagnosed as depression and 41.1% anxiety disorder. 60.7% stated that they had a non-adherence experience in the past. Of these non-adherent patients, 29.5% stopped to take the medication with the idea “I can do it without medication” and 14.3% stopped the medication because of the side effects. Gender, age, marital status and education level were not related to the non-adherence. Only two treatment related thoughts based on health belief concepts were significantly related to the non adherence experience. These thoughts were “If I do not take the medications properly the problems may be permanent” and “If I do not take the medications properly my illness may get worse”. Most of the patients marked “agree” options of the items under the perceived severity, self-efficacy, benefits, susceptibility and health motivation subheads. CONCLUSION: The results of this study showed that the thoughts and perceptions based on health belief concepts helps to identify and express the thoughts related to treatment adherence. These concepts can be used to describe and classify the thoughts about the treatments of patients. However, prospective and qualitative studies may be useful to clarify the influence of the health beliefs on treatment adherence. [TAF Prev Med Bull 2010; 9

Does unconscious thought outperform conscious thought on complex decisions? A further examination

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Todd J. Thorsteinson

2009-04-01

Full Text Available Two experiments examined the benefits of unconscious thought on complex decisions (Dijksterhuis, 2004. Experiment 1 attempted to replicate and extend past research by examining the effect of providing reasons prior to rating the options. Results indicated no significant differences between the conditions. Experiment 2 attempted to replicate the findings of Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, and van Baaren (2006 and determine if a memory aid could overcome the limitations of conscious thought on complex tasks. Results revealed that a memory aid improved decisions compared to the conscious thought condition. Participants in the unconscious thought condition did not perform significantly better than did participants in the conscious thought condition.

Normal Stress or Adjustment Disorder?

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... disorder is a type of stress-related mental illness that can affect your feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Signs and symptoms of an adjustment disorder can include: Anxiety Poor school or work performance Relationship problems Sadness ...

Pensamentos negativos automáticos em pacientes com transtorno do pânico (Automatic Negative Thought in Patients with Panic Disorder

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José Maria Montiel

2014-12-01

Full Text Available RESUMO: O transtorno do pânico (TP é caracterizado por ataques de pânico, os quais surgem acompanhados por uma série de pensamentos inadequados ao contexto. Objetivo: identificar e sistematizar a distorção cognitiva e os tipos de pensamentos negativos automáticos (PNA presentes em pacientes com TP. Participantes: 20 indivíduos na faixa etária de 32 anos e com diagnóstico de TP. Instrumentos: Anamnese e entrevista semi-estruturada, Inventário Beck de Ansiedade e Escala para Pânico e Agorafobia. Resultados: os dados apontaram níveis de ansiedade significativos, corroborando o diagnóstico de transtorno do pânico nos sujeitos. Já os PNA - como «Estou com dor de cabeça. Será que é uma crise?» - e os padrões de distorções cognitivas identificados, incluindo suposição, catastrofização, generalização e subestimação/ superestimação, estão em acordo com a literatura apresentada e são condizentes com a prática clínica. ABSTARCT: Panic disorder (PD is characterized by attacks of panic, which are accompanied by a series of thoughts, inappropriate to the context. Objective: to identify and systematize the cognitive distortion and the types of automatic negative thoughts (ANT present in patients with (PD. Participants: 20 individuals in the age of 32 years and with a diagnosis of PD. Instruments: Anamnesis and semi-structured interview, Beck anxiety inventory and scale of panic and agoraphobia. Results: data showed significant levels of anxiety, corroborating the diagnosis of disorders of panic in the subjects. Already the ANT - as «I have a headache. Is it a crisis?» - and the standards identified cognitive distortions, including assumptions, pessimism, generalization and under-estimation / over-estimation, they are subject to the presented literature and they are suitable for clinical practice.

Signs and Symptoms of Mood Disorders

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... aches and pains Recurring thoughts of death or suicide Other resources: Symptom checklist Learn more about finding a mental health professional. Education Mood Disorders Depression Bipolar Disorder Anxiety Screening Center Co-occurring ...

Clinico-Epidemiological Comparison of Delusion-Prominent and Hallucination-Prominent Clinical Subgroups of Paranoid Schizophrenia.

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Kreinin, Anatoly; Krishtul, Vladimir; Kirsh, Zvi; Menuchin, Michael

2015-01-01

Though hallucinations and delusions are prominent basic impairments in schizophrenia, reports of the relationship between hallucinatory and delusional symptoms among schizophrenia patients are scant. To examine the epidemiological and clinical differences between mainly hallucinatory and mainly delusional subgroups of paranoid schizophrenia patients. One hundred schizophrenia patients, paranoid type, were recruited. In a cross-sectional study, participants were divided into Mainly Hallucinatory (H) and Mainly Delusional (D) subgroups. Demographic variables were compared and clinical characteristics were evaluated using the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms, the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms, and the Clinical Global Impression Scale. The Quality-of-Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire-18 was used to assess quality of life. Clinically, the H group was more heterogeneous as expressed by the broader range of scores that described the clinical picture of patients in that subgroup (in 43 of 78 variables, 55.13%) and similar ranges of scores (31 of 78 variables, 39.74%) for patients in the D group. Duration of hospitalization was significantly longer in group H than in group D (p=0.047). There was no statistically significant difference between the H and D subgroups in demographic characteristics. There are distinct epidemiological and clinical differences between the H and D subgroups, with more severe positive and negative symptoms and greater functional impairment in the H group. Paranoid schizophrenia patients with prominent hallucinations have poorer prognosis and need intensive therapeutic rehabilitation beginning with onset-of-illness. Further genetic studies and comparisons of fMRI and/or PET findings are warranted to investigate additional distinctive characteristics of these subgroups.

Comorbid Diagnosis of Psychotic Disorders in Borderline Personality Disorder: Prevalence and Influence on Outcome

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C. W. Slotema

2018-03-01

Full Text Available BackgroundA diagnosis of psychotic disorder is traditionally considered incompatible with borderline personality disorder (BPD, even though patients sometimes fulfill the diagnostic criteria for both disorders. How often this happens is barely known, as is the influence of comorbid psychotic disorders on the outcome of BPD. Since studies on isolated auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with BPD indicate that these perceptual symptoms have severe consequences and are associated with suicidal behavior and hospitalization, patients with comorbid psychotic disorders are unlikely to fare better.ObjectiveTo examine the point prevalence of psychotic disorders in patients with BPD, their association with the outcome of BPD, and their predictive value for outcome.MethodsIn a cross-sectional design, 84 female outpatients diagnosed with BPD were interviewed with the aid of the MINI-International Neuropsychiatric Interview to establish the point prevalence of comorbid psychotic and other comorbid disorders. After termination of their treatment at a specialized outpatient clinic, the type of referral was considered to be a “good” outcome when they were referred to their general practitioner or to basic psychiatric care for noncomplex patients, and a “poor” outcome when referred to a specialized psychiatric department or to a psychiatric district team for patients with severe psychiatric disorders.ResultsPsychotic disorders were present in 38% of the patients with BPD. With a prevalence of 20%, psychotic disorder not otherwise specified (NOS was the most common subtype; the least common types were schizophrenia (2%, substance-induced psychotic disorder (2%, and brief psychotic disorder (1%. Among six types of comorbid disorders, only psychotic disorders were associated with a poor outcome; they were also predictors for a poor outcome, along with comorbid mood disorders, eating disorders, and somatoform disorders, as well as the severity of BPD

Inpatient treatment has no impact on the core thoughts and perceptions in adolescents with anorexia nervosa.

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Fennig, Silvana; Brunstein Klomek, Anat; Shahar, Ben; Sarel-Michnik, Zohar; Hadas, Arie

2017-06-01

Examine changes in core perceptions and thoughts during the weight restoration phase of inpatient treatment for adolescents with anorexia nervosa. Forty-four adolescents with anorexia nervosa consecutively admitted (2009-2012) to an inpatient paediatric-psychiatric unit specializing in eating disorders. The programme consisted of a complete inpatient intervention combining weight restoration by structured supervised meals with individual and group cognitive-behavioural therapy, parental training/family intervention and educational activities, followed by a half-way day-treatment weight-stabilizing phase and progressive reintroduction to the community. The study focused on changes from hospital admission to discharge in patients' responses to self-report questionnaires on eating disorder symptoms, depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. No significant changes in core anorexic thoughts and perceptions as Body dissatisfaction, Drive for thinness, Weight concern and Shape concern were noted. However, a reduction in the general severity of eating disorder symptoms (including Restraint and Eating concern) was observed, mainly related to the treatment structure. Levels of depression significantly decreased but remained within pathological range. We also found a concerning increase in suicidal ideation not correlated with a concomitant increase in depressive symptomatology. Inpatient treatment of anorexia nervosa in adolescents does not significantly modify core anorexic thoughts and perceptions. This may explain the high relapse rates. Changes in core beliefs may be crucial for recovery and prevention of relapse in anorexia nervosa at this critical age. This study may have clinical implications for the development of better treatment strategies to target the gap between disturbed thoughts and distorted perceptions - the core aspects of anorexia nervosa and physical recovery during and after the weight restoration phase. © 2015 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Eating Disorders in Paraguayan Adolescents

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Ramirez, Maria E.; McIntosh, David E.; Kruczek, Theresa

2013-01-01

Eating disorders, once thought to be exclusively a disorder of the more affluent Western countries, are now spreading around the world. Despite the wealth of information on the prevalence of eating disorders in developed countries, epidemiological data for South America is scarce. The 26-item Eating Attitude Test (EAT-26) was used to explore the…

Auditory verbal hallucinations are related to cortical thinning in the left middle temporal gyrus of patients with schizophrenia.

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Cui, Y; Liu, B; Song, M; Lipnicki, D M; Li, J; Xie, S; Chen, Y; Li, P; Lu, L; Lv, L; Wang, H; Yan, H; Yan, J; Zhang, H; Zhang, D; Jiang, T

2018-01-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are one of the most common and severe symptoms of schizophrenia, but the neuroanatomical abnormalities underlying AVHs are not well understood. The present study aims to investigate whether AVHs are associated with cortical thinning. Participants were schizophrenia patients from four centers across China, 115 with AVHs and 93 without AVHs, as well as 261 healthy controls. All received 3 T T1-weighted brain scans, and whole brain vertex-wise cortical thickness was compared across groups. Correlations between AVH severity and cortical thickness were also determined. The left middle part of the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) was significantly thinner in schizophrenia patients with AVHs than in patients without AVHs and healthy controls. Inferences were made using a false discovery rate approach with a threshold at p < 0.05. Left MTG thickness did not differ between patients without AVHs and controls. These results were replicated by a meta-analysis showing them to be consistent across the four centers. Cortical thickness of the left MTG was also found to be inversely correlated with hallucination severity across all schizophrenia patients. The results of this multi-center study suggest that an abnormally thin left MTG could be involved in the pathogenesis of AVHs in schizophrenia.

[Paroxysmal perceptual alteration in comparison with hallucination--a review of its clinical reports and discussion of its pathophysiological mechanism in the present day, when second generation antipsychotics are widely used].

Science.gov (United States)

Watanabe, Ken

2009-01-01

The syndrome of paroxysmal perceptual alteration (PPA) was first described by Yamaguchi in 1985. Since then, many PPA cases have been reported, and its pathophysiological mechanism has been proposed: a suppressed (blocked) mesolimbic and mesocortical dopaminergic system and sequential compensatory increase of noradrenergic neuronal activity are crucial for the occurrence of PPA. PPA is characterized by hypersensitivity of perception, psychedelic experience (brightening of colors, sharpening of contrast, visual distortion, etc.), and somatic schema disorder (one feels that one is floating, one's extremities are being pulled and elongated, etc.). PPA in chronic schizophrenic patients occurs abruptly like an attack mainly in the evening, often precipitated by fatigue. During the attack, patients also suffer from mood and thought alteration (anxiety, agitation, depressive mood, and inability to distract their thoughts from one thing), but they are aware that symptoms of PPA are not real and apprehensive about them. The attack ceases gradually and spontaneously while the patient rests or sleeps. These clinical features are clearly different from those of schizophrenic hallucinations. It is believed that PPA is closely related to neuroleptic treatment by conventional antipsychotics. I reported the prevalence of PPA as 4.0% in 1991 when high potential D2 blocking agents were prevailing. The occurrence of PPA has been significantly reduced to the present, when second generation (atypical) antipsychotics are prevailing. However, in my inquiry in 2004, the prevalence of PPA was 3.6% in cases treated with risperidone (RIS), while the rates were 0 in cases treated with olanzapine (OLZ), quetiapine (QTP), and perospirone (PRS). Several cases of PPA have been reported in patients who were treated with OLZ and PRS. Until now, no cases of PPA have been reported who were treated with QTP and aripiprazole (APZ). The prevalence of PPA among cases treated with these second generation

The default network and self-generated thought: component processes, dynamic control, and clinical relevance

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Andrews-Hanna, Jessica R.; Smallwood, Jonathan; Spreng, R. Nathan

2014-01-01

Though only a decade has elapsed since the default network was first emphasized as being a large-scale brain system, recent years have brought great insight into the network’s adaptive functions. A growing theme highlights the default network as playing a key role in internally-directed—or self-generated—thought. Here, we synthesize recent findings from cognitive science, neuroscience, and clinical psychology to focus attention on two emerging topics as current and future directions surrounding the default network. First, we present evidence that self-generated thought is a multi-faceted construct whose component processes are supported by different subsystems within the network. Second, we highlight the dynamic nature of the default network, emphasizing its interaction with executive control systems when regulating aspects of internal thought. We conclude by discussing clinical implications of disruptions to the integrity of the network, and consider disorders when thought content becomes polarized or network interactions become disrupted or imbalanced. PMID:24502540

Psychometric properties of the Thought-Action Fusion Scale in a Turkish sample.

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Yorulmaz, Orçun; Yilmaz, A Esin; Gençöz, Tülin

2004-10-01

The aim of the present study was to reveal the cross-cultural utility of the Thought-Action Fusion Scale (TAFS; J. Anxiety Disord. 10 (1996) 379). Thought-action fusion (TAF) refers to the tendency to overvalue the significance and the consequences of thoughts. Two hundred and fifty one undergraduate Turkish students participated in the current study. The reliability and validity analyses of the Turkish version of the scale indicated that the TAFS had adequate psychometric properties in a Turkish sample. Consistent with the original TAF, the Turkish version of TAFS revealed two subscales as TAF-Likelihood and TAF-Morality. Reliability analysis showed that TAF Scale and its factors had adequate internal consistencies and split-half reliability coefficients. Confirming the expectations, TAFS scores were found to be significantly and positively correlated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, responsibility, and guilt measures. Moreover, it was found that people with high obsessive-compulsive symptoms had higher TAFS scores than those with low symptoms.

Prevalence and clinical presentation of HIV positive female ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nine of the 19 HIV positive patients (47%) had a pre-existing primary psychiatric diagnosis, most commonly Bipolar Disorder, recent episode mania with psychotic symptoms. The most common psychotic symptoms were grandiose delusions followed by auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions and visual hallucinations.

What Is Psychiatry?

Medline Plus

Full Text Available ... anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder and eating disorders. Antipsychotic medications – used to treat psychotic symptoms (delusions and hallucinations), schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. Sedatives and ...

Psychological effects of thought acceleration.

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Pronin, Emily; Jacobs, Elana; Wegner, Daniel M

2008-10-01

Six experiments found that manipulations that increase thought speed also yield positive affect. These experiments varied in both the methods used for accelerating thought (i.e., instructions to brainstorm freely, exposure to multiple ideas, encouragement to plagiarize others' ideas, performance of easy cognitive tasks, narration of a silent video in fast-forward, and experimentally controlled reading speed) and the contents of the thoughts that were induced (from thoughts about money-making schemes to thoughts of five-letter words). The results suggested that effects of thought speed on mood are partially rooted in the subjective experience of thought speed. The results also suggested that these effects can be attributed to the joy-enhancing effects of fast thinking (rather than only to the joy-killing effects of slow thinking). This work is inspired by observations of a link between "racing thoughts" and euphoria in cases of clinical mania, and potential implications of that observed link are discussed. (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved

Thoughts in flight: automation use and pilots' task-related and task-unrelated thought.

Science.gov (United States)

Casner, Stephen M; Schooler, Jonathan W

2014-05-01

The objective was to examine the relationship between cockpit automation use and task-related and task-unrelated thought among airline pilots. Studies find that cockpit automation can sometimes relieve pilots of tedious control tasks and afford them more time to think ahead. Paradoxically, automation has also been shown to lead to lesser awareness. These results prompt the question of what pilots think about while using automation. A total of 18 airline pilots flew a Boeing 747-400 simulator while we recorded which of two levels of automation they used. As they worked, pilots were verbally probed about what they were thinking. Pilots were asked to categorize their thoughts as pertaining to (a) a specific task at hand, (b) higher-level flight-related thoughts (e.g.,planning ahead), or (c) thoughts unrelated to the flight. Pilots' performance was also measured. Pilots reported a smaller percentage of task-at-hand thoughts (27% vs. 50%) and a greater percentage of higher-level flight-related thoughts (56% vs. 29%) when using the higher level of automation. However, when all was going according to plan, using either level of automation, pilots also reported a higher percentage of task-unrelated thoughts (21%) than they did when in the midst of an unsuccessful performance (7%). Task-unrelated thoughts peaked at 25% when pilots were not interacting with the automation. Although cockpit automation may provide pilots with more time to think, it may encourage pilots to reinvest only some of this mental free time in thinking flight-related thoughts. This research informs the design of human-automation systems that more meaningfully engage the human operator.

The Role of Pleasure Neurobiology and Dopamine in Mental Health Disorders.

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Worley, Julie

2017-09-01

Recent evidence and research has demonstrated that the pleasure response and associated neurotransmitters and brain circuits play a significant role in substance use disorders (SUDs). It was thought that negative behaviors associated with SUDs resulted from negative choices, but it is now known that chemical changes in the brain drive those behaviors. Several mental health disorders (e.g., eating disorders, non-suicidal self-injury, compulsive sex behaviors, internet gaming, gambling) are also thought to involve those same pleasure responses, neurotransmitters, and brain regions. Studies have shown that the use of naltrexone, a dopamine antagonist, can reduce symptoms of these disorders. It is important for nurses to understand the underlying physiology of mental health disorders that are thought to have an addictive or craving component. This understanding can help reduce stigma. Educating patients about likely neurobiological causes for their disorders can also help reduce guilt and shame. Nurses should educate patients about these disorders and evidence-based treatments, including off-label use of naltrexone. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 55(9), 17-21.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

Thoughts on selected movement disorder terminology and a plea for clarity.

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Walker, Ruth H

2013-01-01

Description of the phenomenology of movement disorders requires precise and accurate terminology. Many of the terms that have been widely used in the literature are imprecise and open to interpretation. An examination of these terms and the assumptions implicit in their usage is important to improve communication and hence the definition, diagnosis, and treatment of movement disorders. I recommend that the term dyskinesia should be used primarily in the settings of Parkinson's disease and tardive dyskinesia, in which its clinical implications are relatively clear; it should not be used in other situations where a precise description could more usefully facilitate diagnosis and treatment. In general dyskinesia should be used in the singular form. Extrapyramidal is based upon obsolete anatomical concepts, is uninformative, and should be discarded. The term abnormal involuntary movements (AIMs) is similarly vague and uninformative, although is unlikely to be eliminated from the psychiatric literature. Movement disorder neurologists as teachers, clinicians, article reviewers, and journal editors have the responsibility to educate our colleagues regarding appropriate usage and the importance of employing correct descriptors.

Thoughts on Selected Movement Disorders Terminology and a Plea for Clarity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ruth H. Walker

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Description of the phenomenology of movement disorders requires precise and accurate terminology. Many of the terms that have been widely used in the literature are imprecise and open to interpretation. An examination of these terms and the assumptions implicit in their usage is important to improve communication and hence the definition, diagnosis, and treatment of movement disorders. I recommend that the term dyskinesia should be used primarily in the settings of Parkinson's disease and tardive dyskinesia, in which its clinical implications are relatively clear; it should not be used in other situations where a precise description could more usefully facilitate diagnosis and treatment. In general dyskinesia should be used in the singular form. Extrapyramidal is based upon obsolete anatomical concepts, is uninformative, and should be discarded. The term abnormal involuntary movements (AIMs is similarly vague and uninformative, although is unlikely to be eliminated from the psychiatric literature. Movement disorder neurologists as teachers, clinicians, article reviewers, and journal editors have the responsibility to educate our colleagues regarding appropriate usage and the importance of employing correct descriptors.

[Distinguishing the voice of self from others: the self-monitoring hypothesis of auditory hallucination].

Science.gov (United States)

Asai, Tomohisa; Tanno, Yoshihiko

2010-08-01

Auditory hallucinations (AH), a psychopathological phenomenon where a person hears non-existent voices, commonly occur in schizophrenia. Recent cognitive and neuroscience studies suggest that AH may be the misattribution of one's own inner speech. Self-monitoring through neural feedback mechanisms allows individuals to distinguish between their own and others' actions, including speech. AH maybe the results of an individual's inability to discriminate between their own speech and that of others. The present paper tries to integrate the three theories (behavioral, brain, and model approaches) proposed to explain the self-monitoring hypothesis of AH. In addition, we investigate the lateralization of self-other representation in the brain, as suggested by recent studies, and discuss future research directions.

Crisis Thought

OpenAIRE

Morris, Edwin Kent

2016-01-01

Crisis thought is an idea that gives a name to and accounts for some of the problematics of the sign crisis in political, social, cultural, and economic discourse. Specifically, crisis thought is a discursive formation, a concept used loosely here to refer to an assemblage of signs such as anxiety or fear that evoke or invoke similar, but inaccurate connotations as crisis in political and everyday usage. The general question this study grapples with is why political, social, cultural, and eco...

Mental disorder and victimisation in prison: Examining the role of mental health treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Daquin, Jane C; Daigle, Leah E

2018-04-01

There is evidence that people with mental disorders are at increased risk of victimisation in prison. It is unclear whether this risk of victimisation varies across types of disorders or symptoms and what role mental health treatment has on victimisation risk in this context. To examine the relationship between specific mental disorders, psychiatric symptoms, and victimisation in prison and the effect of treatment for the disorders on victimisation risk. Using a nationally-representative sample of prisoners, path analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between mental disorder and victimisation. The analyses also examined whether receiving mental health treatment in prison affected any such relationship. Victimisation risk varied with the type of mental disorder or symptoms. Depression, personality disorder, hopelessness, paranoia, and hallucinations were associated with increased victimisation risk. Psychotic illnesses were otherwise negatively associated with victimisation. Receiving mental health treatment in prison was associated with greater risk of victimisation there. Receiving treatment appeared to mediate the relationship between mental disorders, symptoms, and victimisation. The findings suggest that not all inmates with mental disorders are at an increased risk of victimisation. Further, mental health treatment in prison also appears to be a risk factor of victimisation. More research is needed to further elucidate the relationship between mental disorders, treatment, and victimisation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Impact of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS on Brain Functional Marker of Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenia Patients

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Sonia Dollfus

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Several cross-sectional functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI studies reported a negative correlation between auditory verbal hallucination (AVH severity and amplitude of the activations during language tasks. The present study assessed the time course of this correlation and its possible structural underpinnings by combining structural, functional MRI and repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS. Methods: Nine schizophrenia patients with AVH (evaluated with the Auditory Hallucination Rating scale; AHRS and nine healthy participants underwent two sessions of an fMRI speech listening paradigm. Meanwhile, patients received high frequency (20 Hz rTMS. Results: Before rTMS, activations were negatively correlated with AHRS in a left posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS cluster, considered henceforward as a functional region of interest (fROI. After rTMS, activations in this fROI no longer correlated with AHRS. This decoupling was explained by a significant decrease of AHRS scores after rTMS that contrasted with a relative stability of cerebral activations. A voxel-based-morphometry analysis evidenced a cluster of the left pSTS where grey matter volume negatively correlated with AHRS before rTMS and positively correlated with activations in the fROI at both sessions. Conclusion: rTMS decreases the severity of AVH leading to modify the functional correlate of AVH underlain by grey matter abnormalities.

[Analysis of the Structure of Acute Psychotic Disorder].

Science.gov (United States)

Gerardo, Téllez R; Ricardo, Sánchez P; Luis, Eduardo Jaramillo

2012-03-01

Schizophrenia is a clinically heterogeneous disorder. A multifactorial structure of this syndrome has been described in previous reports. The aim of this study was to evaluate what are the possible diagnostic categories in patients having acute psychotic symptoms, studying their clinical characteristics in a cross-sectional study. An instrument for measuring psychotic symptoms was created using previous scales (SANS, SAPS, BPRS, EMUN, Zung depression scale). Using as criteria statistical indexes and redundance of items, the initial instrument having 101 items has been reduced to 57 items. 232 patients with acute psychotic symptoms, in most cases schizophrenia, attending Clínica Nuestra Señora de la Paz in Bogotá and Hospital San Juan de Dios in Chía have been evaluated from April, 2008 to December, 2009. Multivariate statistical methods have been used for analyzing data. A six-factor structure has been found (Deficit, paranoid-aggressive, disorganized, depressive, bizarre delusions, hallucinations). Cluster analysis showed eight subtypes that can be described as: 1) bizarre delusions-hallucinations; 2) deterioration and disorganized behavior; 3) deterioration; 4) deterioration and paranoid-aggressive behavior; 5) bizarre delusions; 6) paranoia-anxiety- aggressiveness; 7) depressive symptoms and bizarre delusions; 8) paranoia and aggressiveness with depressive symptoms These subtypes allow a more exhaustive characterization that those included in standard classification schemes and should be validated in longitudinal studies. Copyright © 2012 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

'The devil lay upon her and held her down' Hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis described by the Dutch physician Isbrand van Diemerbroeck (1609-1674) in 1664

NARCIS (Netherlands)

E.J.O. Kompanje (Erwin)

2008-01-01

textabstractHypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are visual, tactile, auditory or other sensory events, usually brief but sometimes prolonged, that occur at the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnagogic) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic). Hypnagogic and hypnopompic

The effects of psychoeducation on thought-action fusion, thought suppression, and responsibility.

Science.gov (United States)

Marino-Carper, Teresa; Negy, Charles; Burns, Gillian; Lunt, Rachael A

2010-09-01

The current study examined the effects of a psychoeducational intervention designed to target thought-action fusion (TAF) on TAF, thought suppression, and responsibility cognitions. 139 undergraduate students (25 male; 114 female) who were relatively high in TAF with respect to their peers served as participants. Immediately following intervention, individuals who had received psychoeducation regarding TAF reported significantly lower morality TAF scores than individuals who had received psychoeducation regarding thoughts in general and individuals in the control group. At the two-week follow-up assessment, the likelihood TAF scores of those who had received psychoeducation regarding TAF were significantly lower than those of the control group. In addition, the group that received psychoeducation regarding TAF was the only group that did not experience a significant increase in thought suppression from baseline to post-intervention, and was also the only group to experience an increase in both frequency of and belief in low-responsibility thoughts from baseline to follow-up. Implications are discussed. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Differential diagnosis between Schizotypal Personality Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders: a case report].

Science.gov (United States)

Ünver, Buket; Öner, Özgür; Yurtbaşı, Pınar

2015-01-01

Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by social and interpersonal deficits marked by discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior. Inappropriate or constricted affect, reduced capacity for relationships, lack of close friends and reduced capacity for social life are the symptoms that overlap both schizotypal personality disorder and autism spectrum disorders. The making of differential diagnosis may be difficult since several symptoms are similar between these disorders. In this study, we discussed the differential diagnosis issues on the basis of an adolescent case. Odd appearance, magical thoughts, reference thoughts suggests Schizotypal Personality Disorder whereas lack of eye contact at 2 years old, a preference to be isolated and play alone and referral to a child psychiatrist at 4 years old suggest Autism Spectrum Disorders. Based on the results of psychological assessment, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) profile is compatible with autistic children's profiles. Based on Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire, the patient's anxiety, lack of close friends, constricted affect symptoms which take place in the category of interpersonal schizotypy seems to overlap with lack of communication of Autism Spectrum Disorders. This case report indicates that, separation of autism and schizophrenia, a very important historical breakthrough in autism research, may be blurred in cases with less typical clinical pictures representing autistic and schizophrenic "spectrum" diagnosis.

Symptomatology and social inference: a theory of mind study of schizophrenia and psychotic affective disorder.

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Marjoram, Dominic; Gardner, Clare; Burns, Jonathan; Miller, Patrick; Lawrie, Stephen M; Johnstone, Eve C

2005-11-01

There is evidence that certain patients with schizophrenia have deficits in theory of mind (ToM) capabilities. It is, however, unclear whether these are symptom or diagnosis-specific. A ToM hinting task was given to 15 patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia, 15 patients with affective disorder and 15 healthy controls. Severity of the current psychopathology was measured using the Krawiecka standardised scale of psychotic symptoms (Krawiecka, Goldberg, & Vaughan, 1977); IQ was estimated via the Ammons and Ammons Quick Test (Ammons & Ammons, 1962). The group with schizophrenia performed significantly worse than the affective and control groups. Poor performance on the hinting task was found to be significantly related to the presence of positive symptoms (instead of negative ones) and specifically related to delusions and hallucinations. These findings remained when covariance for potentially confounding variables was applied. Individuals with high levels of delusions and hallucinations performed significantly worse on this ToM task, regardless of diagnosis, implying ToM impairment is not exclusive to schizophrenia but is evident in other forms of psychosis. Between-group analyses showed the schizophrenia group had a significantly poorer performance on this task than the others.

What Is Psychiatry?

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Full Text Available ... used to treat psychotic symptoms (delusions and hallucinations), schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. Sedatives and anxiolytics – used to treat ... Personality Disorders Postpartum Depression Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Schizophrenia Sleep Disorders Somatic Symptom Disorder Specific Learning Disorder ...

Mapping the Brain’s Metaphor Circuitry:Is Abstract Thought Metaphorical Thought?

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George eLakoff

2014-12-01

Full Text Available An overview of the basics of metaphorical thought and language from the perspective of Neurocognition, the integrated interdisciplinary study of how conceptual thought and language work in the brain. The paper outlines a theory of metaphor circuitry and discusses how everyday reason makes use of embodied metaphor circuitry.

Popper's Thought Experiment Reinvestigated

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Richardson, Chris; Dowling, Jonathan

2012-02-01

Karl Popper posed an interesting thought experiment in 1934. With it, he meant to question the completeness of quantum mechanics. He claimed that the notion of quantum entanglement leads to absurd scenarios that cannot be true in real life and that an implementation of his thought experiment would not give the results that QM predicts. Unfortunately for Popper, it has taken until recently to perform experiments that test his claims. The results of the experiments do not refute QM as Popper predicted, but neither do they confirm what Popper claimed QM predicted. Kim and Shih implemented Popper's thought experiment in the lab. The results of the experiment are not clear and have instigated many interpretations of the results. The results show some correlation between entangled photons, but not in the way that Popper thought, nor in the way a simple application of QM might predict. A ghost-imaging experiment by Strekalov, et al. sheds light on the physics behind Popper's thought experiment, but does not try to directly test it. I will build the physics of Popper's thought experiment from the ground up and show how the results of both of these experiments agree with each other and the theory of QM, but disprove Popper.

Predictive models for suicidal thoughts and behaviors among Spanish University students: rationale and methods of the UNIVERSAL (University & mental health) project.

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Blasco, Maria Jesús; Castellví, Pere; Almenara, José; Lagares, Carolina; Roca, Miquel; Sesé, Albert; Piqueras, José Antonio; Soto-Sanz, Victoria; Rodríguez-Marín, Jesús; Echeburúa, Enrique; Gabilondo, Andrea; Cebrià, Ana Isabel; Miranda-Mendizábal, Andrea; Vilagut, Gemma; Bruffaerts, Ronny; Auerbach, Randy P; Kessler, Ronald C; Alonso, Jordi

2016-05-04

Suicide is a leading cause of death among young people. While suicide prevention is considered a research and intervention priority, longitudinal data is needed to identify risk and protective factors associate with suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Here we describe the UNIVERSAL (University and Mental Health) project which aims are to: (1) test prevalence and 36-month incidence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors; and (2) identify relevant risk and protective factors associated with the incidence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among university students in Spain. An ongoing multicenter, observational, prospective cohort study of first year university students in 5 Spanish universities. Students will be assessed annually during a 36 month follow-up. The surveys will be administered through an online, secure web-based platform. A clinical reappraisal will be completed among a subsample of respondents. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors will be assess with the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview (SITBI) and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS). Risk and protective factors will include: mental disorders, measured with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview version 3.0 (CIDI 3.0) and Screening Scales (CIDI-SC), and the Epi-Q Screening Survey (EPI-Q-SS), socio-demographic variables, self-perceived health status, health behaviors, well-being, substance use disorders, service use and treatment. The UNIVERSAL project is part of the International College Surveys initiative, which is a core project within the World Mental Health consortium. Lifetime and the 12-month prevalence will be calculated for suicide ideation, plans and attempts. Cumulative incidence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and mental disorders will be measured using the actuarial method. Risk and protective factors of suicidal thoughts and behaviors will be analyzed by Cox proportional hazard models. The study will provide valid, innovative and useful data for developing

Borderline Personality Disorder

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... of a mood disorder—not borderline personality disorder Self-harming behavior, such as cutting Recurring thoughts of suicidal ... symptoms and reduce the number of suicidal or self-harming behaviors. Read more on NIMH’s Psychotherapies health topic ...

Beauty Requires Thought.

Science.gov (United States)

Brielmann, Aenne A; Pelli, Denis G

2017-05-22

The experience of beauty is a pleasure, but common sense and philosophy suggest that feeling beauty differs from sensuous pleasures such as eating or sex. Immanuel Kant [1, 2] claimed that experiencing beauty requires thought but that sensuous pleasure can be enjoyed without thought and cannot be beautiful. These venerable hypotheses persist in models of aesthetic processing [3-7] but have never been tested. Here, participants continuously rated the pleasure felt from a nominally beautiful or non-beautiful stimulus and then judged whether they had experienced beauty. The stimuli, which engage various senses, included seeing images, tasting candy, and touching a teddy bear. The observer reported the feelings that the stimulus evoked. The time course of pleasure, across stimuli, is well-fit by a model with one free parameter: pleasure amplitude. Pleasure amplitude increases linearly with the feeling of beauty. To test Kant's claim of a need for thought, we reduce cognitive capacity by adding a "two-back" task to distract the observer's thoughts. The distraction greatly reduces the beauty and pleasure experienced from stimuli that otherwise produce strong pleasure and spares that of less-pleasant stimuli. We also find that strong pleasure is always beautiful, whether produced reliably by beautiful stimuli or just occasionally by sensuous stimuli. In sum, we confirm Kant's claim that only the pleasure associated with feeling beauty requires thought and disprove his claim that sensuous pleasures cannot be beautiful. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Self-Reported Visual Perceptual Abnormalities Are Strongly Associated with Core Clinical Features in Psychotic Disorders

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Brian P. Keane

2018-03-01

Full Text Available BackgroundPast studies using the Bonn Scale for the Assessment of Basic Symptoms (hereafter, Bonn Scale have shown that self-reported perceptual/cognitive disturbances reveal which persons have or will soon develop schizophrenia. Here, we focused specifically on the clinical value of self-reported visual perceptual abnormalities (VPAs since they are underexplored and have been associated with suicidal ideation, negative symptoms, and objective visual dysfunction.MethodUsing the 17 Bonn Scale vision items, we cross-sectionally investigated lifetime occurrence of VPAs in 21 first-episode psychosis and 22 chronic schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder (SZ/SA patients. Relationships were probed between VPAs and illness duration, symptom severity, current functioning, premorbid functioning, diagnosis, and age of onset.ResultsIncreased VPAs were associated with: earlier age of onset; more delusions, hallucinations, bizarre behavior, and depressive symptoms; and worse premorbid social functioning, especially in the childhood and early adolescent phases. SZ/SA participants endorsed more VPAs as compared to those with schizophreniform or psychotic disorder-NOS, especially in the perception of color, bodies, faces, object movement, and double/reversed vision. The range of self-reported VPAs was strikingly similar between first-episode and chronic patients and did not depend on the type or amount of antipsychotic medication. As a comparative benchmark, lifetime occurrence of visual hallucinations did not depend on diagnosis and was linked only to poor premorbid social functioning.ConclusionA brief 17-item interview derived from the Bonn Scale is strongly associated with core clinical features in schizophrenia. VPAs hold promise for clarifying diagnosis, predicting outcome, and guiding neurocognitive investigations.

What Is Psychiatry?

Medline Plus

Full Text Available ... Antidepressants – used to treat depression, panic disorder, PTSD, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder and eating disorders. Antipsychotic medications – used to treat psychotic symptoms (delusions and hallucinations), schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. Sedatives and ...

A theory of unconscious thought

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dijksterhuis, A.J.; Nordgren, L.F.

2006-01-01

We present a theory about human thought named the unconscious-thought theory (UTT). The theory is applicable to decision making, impression formation, attitude formation and change, problem solving, and creativity. It distinguishes between two modes of thought: unconscious and conscious. Unconscious

Aging and repeated thought suppression success.

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Ann E Lambert

Full Text Available Intrusive thoughts and attempts to suppress them are common, but while suppression may be effective in the short-term, it can increase thought recurrence in the long-term. Because intentional suppression involves controlled processing, and many aspects of controlled processing decline with age, age differences in thought suppression outcomes may emerge, especially over repeated thought suppression attempts as cognitive resources are expended. Using multilevel modeling, we examined age differences in reactions to thought suppression attempts across four thought suppression sequences in 40 older and 42 younger adults. As expected, age differences were more prevalent during suppression than during free monitoring periods, with younger adults indicating longer, more frequent thought recurrences and greater suppression difficulty. Further, younger adults' thought suppression outcomes changed over time, while trajectories for older adults' were relatively stable. Results are discussed in terms of older adults' reduced thought recurrence, which was potentially afforded by age-related changes in reactive control and distractibility.

The Role of Cognitive Factors in Childhood Social Anxiety: Social Threat Thoughts and Social Skills Perception.

Science.gov (United States)

van Niekerk, Rianne E; Klein, Anke M; Allart-van Dam, Esther; Hudson, Jennifer L; Rinck, Mike; Hutschemaekers, Giel J M; Becker, Eni S

2017-01-01

Models of cognitive processing in anxiety disorders state that socially anxious children display several distorted cognitive processes that maintain their anxiety. The present study investigated the role of social threat thoughts and social skills perception in relation to childhood trait and state social anxiety. In total, 141 children varying in their levels of social anxiety performed a short speech task in front of a camera and filled out self-reports about their trait social anxiety, state anxiety, social skills perception and social threat thoughts. Results showed that social threat thoughts mediated the relationship between trait social anxiety and state anxiety after the speech task, even when controlling for baseline state anxiety. Furthermore, we found that children with higher trait anxiety and more social threat thoughts had a lower perception of their social skills, but did not display a social skills deficit. These results provide evidence for the applicability of the cognitive social anxiety model to children.

Genetics Home Reference: Lafora progressive myoclonus epilepsy

Science.gov (United States)

... also experience occipital seizures, which can cause temporary blindness and visual hallucinations. Over time, the seizures worsen ... a continued loss of intellectual function (dementia) impairs memory, judgment, and thought. Affected people lose the ability ...

Are Males and Females with Autism Spectrum Disorder More Similar than We Thought?

Science.gov (United States)

Mussey, Joanna L.; Ginn, Nicole C.; Klinger, Laura G.

2017-01-01

Differences in behavioral and cognitive profiles have been suggested to potentially impact the presentation of social and communication symptoms in females with autism spectrum disorder. This study examined gender differences in age of diagnosis, cognitive profiles, social communication symptomatology, and autism spectrum disorder symptom severity…

The effects of thoughts of survival and thoughts of death on recall in the adaptive memory paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Klein, Stanley B

2014-01-01

In a recent paper Hart and Burns (2012) presented evidence that conditions that prime thoughts of one's mortality benefit recall. Drawing on the conceptual relation between thoughts of death and thoughts of survival, Hart and Burns interpret their findings as suggestive of the possibility that death-related thoughts function in manner similar to survival-related thoughts in enhancing recall. In the present study I draw on evolutionary arguments to question whether a conceptual relation between thoughts of death and thoughts of survival translates into a functional relation. I then present data showing that while death-related thoughts can promote high levels of recall, (a) the level achieved does not match that produced by survival processing and (b) survival and death cognition likely rely on different mechanisms to achieve their effects.

Intermittent Explosive Disorder

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Lut Tamam

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Intermittent explosive disorder is an impulse control disorder characterized by the occurrence of discrete episodes of failure to resist aggressive impulses that result in violent assault or destruction of property. Though the prevalence intermittent explosive disorder has been reported to be relatively rare in frontier studies on the field, it is now common opinion that intermittent explosive disorder is far more common than previously thought especially in clinical psychiatry settings. Etiological studies displayed the role of both psychosocial factors like childhood traumas and biological factors like dysfunctional neurotransmitter systems and genetics. In differential diagnosis of the disorder, disorders involving agression as a symptom such as alcohol and drug intoxication, antisocial and borderline personality disorders, personality changes due to general medical conditions and behavioral disorder should be considered. A combination of pharmacological and psychotherapeutic approaches are suggested in the treatment of the disorder. This article briefly reviews the historical background, diagnostic criteria, epidemiology, etiology and treatment of intermittent explosive disorder.

What is Bipolar Disorder?

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... down” Have trouble sleeping Think about death or suicide Can someone have bipolar disorder along with other problems? Yes. Sometimes people having very strong mood episodes may have psychotic symptoms. Psychosis affects thoughts ...

Antipsychotic treatment of schizotypy and schizotypal personality disorder

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jakobsen, Klaus Damgaard; Skyum, Eva; Hashemi, Nasseh

2017-01-01

Schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) is characterised by thought disorders, experiences of illusions, obsessive ruminations, bizarre or eccentric behaviour, cognitive problems and deficits in social functioning - symptoms that SPD shares with schizophrenia. Efforts have been undertaken...

Manic thinking: independent effects of thought speed and thought content on mood.

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Pronin, Emily; Wegner, Daniel M

2006-09-01

This experiment found that the speed of thought affects mood. Thought speed was manipulated via participants' paced reading of statements designed to induce either an elated or a depressed mood. Participants not only experienced more positive mood in response to elation than in response to depression statements, but also experienced an independent increase in positive mood when they had been thinking fast rather than slow--for both elation and depression statements. This effect of thought speed extended beyond mood to other experiences often associated with mania (i.e., feelings of power, feelings of creativity, a heightened sense of energy, and inflated self-esteem or grandiosity).

Attention, Memory, Intrusive Thoughts, and Acceptance in PTSD: An Update on the Empirical Literature for Clinicians

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Shipherd, Jillian C.; Salters-Pedneault, Kristalyn

2008-01-01

Information processing theory suggests that cognitive changes following trauma are common and hypothesized to have an impact on attention, memory, and intrusive thoughts. There is an ever-expanding empirical literature where cognitive features of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are being explored. However, it can sometimes be difficult for…

Exploring Thought Leadership, Thought Liberation and Critical ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2015 ... peripheral position that the African continent occupies in the global ... Gumede: Exploring Thought Leadership, and Critical Consciousness ... and seemingly incapable of creative endeavours. ...... origin', Journal of Peace Research 9 (2): 105–20.

Event-related potential correlates of suspicious thoughts in individuals with schizotypal personality features.

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Li, Xue-bing; Huang, Jia; Cheung, Eric F C; Gong, Qi-yong; Chan, Raymond C K

2011-01-01

Suspiciousness is a common feature of schizophrenia. However, suspicious thoughts are also commonly experienced by the general population. This study aimed to examine the underlying neural mechanism of suspicious thoughts in individuals with and without schizotypal personality disorder (SPD)-proneness, using an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded when the "feeling of being seen through" was evoked in the participants. The findings showed a prominent positive deflection of the difference wave within the time window 250-400 ms after stimuli presentation in both SPD-prone and non-SPD-prone groups. Furthermore, the P3 amplitude was significantly reduced in the SPD-prone group compared to the non-SPD-prone group. The current density analysis also indicated hypoactivity in both frontal and temporal regions in the SPD-prone group, suggesting that the frontotemporal cortical network may play a role in the onset of suspicious thoughts. The P3 of difference wave was inversely correlated with the cognitive-perception factor and the suspiciousness/paranoid ideation trait, which provided preliminary electrophysiological evidence for the association of suspiciousness with SPD features.

The influence of thoughts of death and suicidal ideation on the course of depression in older depressed patients.

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Bogers, Ista C H M; Zuidersma, Marij; Boshuisen, Marjolein L; Comijs, Hannie C; Oude Voshaar, Richard C

2017-08-01

Thoughts of death are not regularly included in diagnostic instruments and rarely examined separately from thoughts of suicide. This exploratory study examined whether thoughts of death and thoughts of suicide affect the course of late-life depressive disorders. In 378 depressed older persons, thoughts of death and thoughts of suicide were assessed using questions from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. After 2 years, the presence of a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of minor or major depression or dysthymia was assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. The Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology was administered every 6 months up till 3-year follow-up. Multinomial logistic regression showed that thoughts of death as well as thoughts of suicide predicted double depression at follow-up (OR = 2.14 [95% CI: 1.04-4.40] and OR = 6.47 [95% CI: 2.22-3.02], respectively), compared with patients without these thoughts. Results became non-significant when adjusted for baseline depression severity (OR = 1.17 [95% CI: 0.52-2.63] and OR = 2.57 [95% CI: 0.79-8.84], respectively). Mixed linear models showed that severity of depression was lowest in the reference group, while symptoms decreased more over time in those with either thoughts of death or suicide. Patients with thoughts of death or with thoughts of suicide were more severely depressed at baseline and follow-up, with the highest risk of being depressed at follow-up for patients with thoughts of suicide. These associations could be explained by baseline depression severity. The results suggest that thoughts of death and thoughts of suicide are important risk markers in predicting the course of depression. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What Is Psychiatry?

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Full Text Available ... as a panic attack, frightening hallucinations, thoughts of suicide, or hearing "voices." Or they may be more ... After Disaster, Trauma Internet Gaming Share Your Story Suicide Prevention Warning Signs of Mental Illness What is ...

What Is Psychiatry?

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Full Text Available ... as a panic attack, frightening hallucinations, thoughts of suicide, or hearing "voices." Or they may be more ... Expert Coping After Disaster, Trauma Share Your Story Suicide Prevention Warning Signs of Mental Illness What is ...

What Is Psychiatry?

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Full Text Available ... addressed to individuals in the European Economic Area. As described in the Privacy Policy, this website utilizes ... many reasons. The problems can be sudden, such as a panic attack, frightening hallucinations, thoughts of suicide, ...

Persistent complex bereavement disorder: clinical utility and classification of the category proposed for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition.

Science.gov (United States)

Shimizu, Kanako; Kikuchi, Senichiro; Kobayashi, Toshiyuki; Kato, Satoshi

2017-01-01

Persistent complex bereavement disorder (PCBD) was proposed as a bereavement-related clinical category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, which included the disorder among conditions for further study. This is an independent clinical category in which intense yearning for the deceased continues for at least 12 months. However, the diagnostic features are still inconclusive. We suggest a variation of PCBD for making category from our clinical experiences. We presented two representative case studies in which grief caused by bereavement was observed as the root of the pathological condition. We examined the disorder's pathological conditions, diagnoses, and appropriate treatments based on the cases we experienced. Both cases involved elderly women who lost their spouse through illness and experienced prolonged grief for an extended period, resulting in hospital admission. Based on the two cases, we believe that PCBD can also include a psychotic type with hallucinations as a major symptom. While studying PCBD, we took into account specific cultural characteristics of Japanese people and their present day social environment. Such cases would be suggestive when determining the PCBD clinical category in the future. PCBD is considered to be clinically very useful, especially in an extremely aged society as seen in developed countries, including Japan. © 2016 The Authors. Psychogeriatrics © 2016 Japanese Psychogeriatric Society.

Hoarding Disorder Trough Three Case, A New Mental Disorder in DSM-5

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Süheyla DODAN BULUT

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Compulsive hoarding is a problem characterized with excessive collection and accumulation, failure to discard the excess amount of collected items. Although it is considered to be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder in DSMIV- TR (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders fourth edition text revision, it is thought that compulsive hoarding and OCD may have different biological, cognitive and behavioral mechanisms and compulsive hoarding may be associated with many other psychological illnesses. For these reasons, in DSM-5 (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders fifth edition hoarding disorder diagnosis is located under the classification of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. In this case report, three cases classified in different diagnostic categories according to DSM-IV-TR will be mentioned and hoarding disorder will be discussed.

A role for the precuneus in thought?action fusion: Evidence from participants with significant obsessive?compulsive symptoms ?

OpenAIRE

Jones, Rhiannon; Bhattacharya, Joydeep

2013-01-01

Likelihood thought–action fusion (TAF-L) refers to a cognitive bias in which individuals believe that the mere thought of a negative event increases its likelihood of occurring in reality. TAF-L is most commonly associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) but is also present in depression, generalized anxiety disorder and psychosis. We induced TAF-L in individuals with high (High-OC, N = 23) and low (Low-OC, N = 24) levels of OC traits, and used low resolution electromagnetic tomograp...

[From disability to the adunatos: some thoughts on disability and somatoform pain disorder].

Science.gov (United States)

Delli Noci, C; Barras, V; Stiefel, F

2013-02-13

Disability, especially if related to a psychiatric disorder, such as somatoform pain disorder, is characterized by medical, psychological, relational, social and societal, as well as financial and political aspects. This manuscript, part of a PhD thesis which reflects on a possible dialogue between an ancient text and the modern conceptualization of disability, tries to address the phenomenological, historical and political dimensions of disability.

The association between childhood autistic traits and adolescent psychotic experiences is explained by general neuropsychiatric problems.

Science.gov (United States)

Cederlöf, Martin; Pettersson, Erik; Sariaslan, Amir; Larsson, Henrik; Östberg, Per; Kelleher, Ian; Långström, Niklas; Gumpert, Clara Hellner; Lundström, Sebastian; Lichtenstein, Paul

2016-03-01

Studies suggest associations between childhood autistic traits and adolescent psychotic experiences. However, recent research suggests that a general neuropsychiatric problems factor predicts adverse outcomes better than specific diagnostic entities. To examine if the alleged association between autistic traits and psychotic experiences could rather be explained by a general neuropsychiatric problems factor comprising symptoms of ADHD, tic disorder, developmental coordination disorder, and learning disorder, we conducted a prospective cohort study based on the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden. In addition, we examined the genetic and environmental influences on the associations. A total of 9,282 twins with data on childhood autistic traits and other neuropsychiatric problems, and follow-up data on psychotic experiences at ages 15 and/or 18 years were included. First, psychotic experiences were regressed on autistic traits and second, the general neuropsychiatric problems factor was added to the model. Auditory hallucinations were analyzed separately from the other psychotic experiences. Finally, twin analyses were employed to disentangle genetic from environmental influences in the observed associations. Replicating prior research, significant associations were found between autistic traits in childhood and auditory hallucinations at ages 15 and 18. However, after controlling for the general neuropsychiatric problems factor, the associations between autistic traits and auditory hallucinations disappeared, whereas the association between the general neuropsychiatric problems factor and auditory hallucinations persisted after controlling for autistic traits. Twin analyses revealed that the association between the general neuropsychiatric problems factor and auditory hallucinations was driven by shared genetic influences. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The affective reactivity of psychotic speech: The role of internal source monitoring in explaining increased thought disorder under emotional challenge.

Science.gov (United States)

de Sousa, Paulo; Sellwood, William; Spray, Amy; Bentall, Richard P

2016-04-01

Thought disorder (TD) has been shown to vary in relation to negative affect. Here we examine the role internal source monitoring (iSM, i.e. ability to discriminate between inner speech and verbalized speech) in TD and whether changes in iSM performance are implicated in the affective reactivity effect (deterioration of TD when participants are asked to talk about emotionally-laden topics). Eighty patients diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and thirty healthy controls received interviews that promoted personal disclosure (emotionally salient) and interviews on everyday topics (non-salient) on separate days. During the interviews, participants were tested on iSM, self-reported affect and immediate auditory recall. Patients had more TD, poorer ability to discriminate between inner and verbalized speech, poorer immediate auditory recall and reported more negative affect than controls. Both groups displayed more TD and negative affect in salient interviews but only patients showed poorer performance on iSM. Immediate auditory recall did not change significantly across affective conditions. In patients, the relationship between self-reported negative affect and TD was mediated by deterioration in the ability to discriminate between inner speech and speech that was directed to others and socially shared (performance on the iSM) in both interviews. Furthermore, deterioration in patients' performance on iSM across conditions significantly predicted deterioration in TD across the interviews (affective reactivity of speech). Poor iSM is significantly associated with TD. Negative affect, leading to further impaired iSM, leads to increased TD in patients with psychosis. Avenues for future research as well as clinical implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Five year follow-up of non-psychotic adults with frequent auditory verbal hallucinations: are they still healthy?

Science.gov (United States)

Daalman, K; Diederen, K M J; Hoekema, L; van Lutterveld, R; Sommer, I E C

2016-07-01

Previously, we described 103 adults (mean age 41 years) who experienced frequent, auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), in the absence of a need for mental healthcare. Importantly, these adults were largely past the peak incidence age for psychosis (15-35 years). It is unclear if these older individuals with AVH are still at increased risk for psychosis or other psychopathology. To address this question, we conducted a 5-year follow-up of previously included individuals (103 with AVH, 60 controls). Eighty-one adults with AVH (78.6%) and forty-nine controls (81.7%) could be contacted and were willing to participate. Participants were screened for psychosis and a need for mental healthcare at follow-up using the Comprehensive Assessment of Symptoms and History interview (CASH). Need for mental healthcare was defined as a clinical diagnosis as identified using the CASH and/or treatment by a mental healthcare specialist. Phenomenology of AVH was assessed with the PSYRATS Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale. Five individuals with AVH (6.2%) had developed psychosis and 32 (39.5%) had developed a need for mental healthcare. Voice-related distress at baseline significantly predicted need for mental healthcare. AVH persisted in most individuals (86.4%), without significant changes in phenomenology. None of the controls had developed psychotic symptoms, and need for mental healthcare (n = 6, 12.2%) was significantly lower in this group. These findings suggest that frequent AVH in non-psychotic adults past the peak incidence age for psychosis constitute a rather static symptom and that individuals with AVH may be best viewed as situated on a need for care continuum.

The development of in vivo tracer methods to obtain new information about human disease: a study of the hallucinating brain

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jones, T.; Silbersweig, D.A.; Stern, E.; Schnorr, L.; Seaward, J.; Clark, J.C.; Lammertsma, A.A.; Grootoonk, S.

1996-01-01

An outline is provided of the development of methodological strategies to address the question of focal cerebral activation during hallucinations in schizophrenic patients. In so doing, the innovation and diligence required to tailor in vivo tracer procedures to specific clinical research issues are highlighted. Attention is drawn to the complexity of methodological advances and the way in which they are based upon close scientific and technical collaboration between clinical scientists, and non-clinical scientists and research support staff. (orig.). With 1 fig

Visual Hallucinations as Incidental Negative Effects of Virtual Reality on Parkinson’s Disease Patients: A Link with Neurodegeneration?

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Giovanni Albani

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We followed up a series of 23 Parkinson’s disease (PD patients who had performed an immersive virtual reality (VR protocol eight years before. On that occasion, six patients incidentally described visual hallucinations (VH with occurrences of images not included in the virtual environment. Curiously, in the following years, only these patients reported the appearance of VH later in their clinical history, while the rest of the group did not. Even considering the limited sample size, we may argue that VR immersive systems can induce unpleasant effects in PD patients who are predisposed to a cognitive impairment.

[Dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia?].

Science.gov (United States)

Tschöke, S; Steinert, T

2010-01-01

We present a case of dissociative identity disorder in which Schneiderian first rank symptoms were present besides of various states of consciousness. Thus the diagnosis of schizophrenia had to be considered. Formally, the symptoms met ICD-10 criteria for schizophrenia. However, taking into account the lack of formal thought disorder and of negative symptoms as well as a typical history of severe and prolonged traumatisation, we did not diagnose a co-morbid schizophrenic disorder. There is good evidence for the existence of psychotic symptoms among patients with dissociative disorders. However, in clinical practice this differential diagnosis is rarely considered.

Neuroimaging of neurotic disorders

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Okubo, Yoshiro; Yahata, Noriaki

2006-01-01

Neuroimaging has been involved in recent biological approaches with evidence for neurotic disorders in place of diagnostic criteria on Freud theory hitherto. This review describes the present states of brain imaging in those disorders. Emotion has such three bases for environmental stimuli as recognition/evaluation of causable factors, manifestation, and its control, each of which occurs in various different regions connected by neuro-net work in the brain. The disorders are regarded as abnormality of the circuit that can be imaged. Documented and discussed are the actual regions imaged by MRI and PET in panic disorder, social phobia, phobias to specified things, posttraumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The approach is thought important for elucidating not only the pathogenesis of the disorders but also the human emotional functions and mechanism of the mind, which may lead to a better treatment of the disorders in future. (T.I)

Charles Bonnet Syndrome in a Patient With Right Medial Occipital Lobe Infarction: Epileptic or Deafferentation Phenomenon?

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Kumral, Emre; Uluakay, Arzu; Dönmez, İlknur

2015-07-01

Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS) is an uncommon disorder characterized by complex and recurrent visual hallucinations in patients with visual pathway pathologic defects. To describe a patient who experienced complex visual hallucinations following infarction in the right occipital lobe and epileptic seizure who was diagnosed as having CBS. A 65-year-old man presented acute ischemic stroke caused by artery to artery embolism involving the right occipital lobe. Following ischemic stroke, complex visual hallucinations in the left visual field not associated with loss of consciousness or delusion developed in the patient. Hallucinations persisted for >1 month and during hallucination, no electrographic seizures were recorded through 24 hours of videoelectroencephalographic monitoring. CBS may develop in a patient with occipital lobe infarction following an embolic event. CBS associated with medial occipital lobe infarction and epilepsy may coexist and reflects the abnormal functioning of an integrated neuronal network.

Delusional disorders--are they simply paranoid schizophrenia?

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Marneros, Andreas; Pillmann, Frank; Wustmann, Tobias

2012-05-01

This article tries to give an answer to the question of whether International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) persistent delusional disorder (PDD) or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) delusional disorder (DD) is simply paranoid schizophrenia (PS). Because ICD-10 PDD and DSM-IV DD are identical, we use DD as a synonym. A prospective and longitudinal study compared all inpatients with DD treated at the Halle-Wittenberg university hospital during a 14-year period with a previously investigated selected cohort of patients with PS. Sociodemographic data, symptomatology, course, and outcome parameters were examined using standardized instruments. The duration of the follow-up period in patients with DD was 10.8 years and for the PS patients 12.9 years. Significant differences between DD and PS were found: DD patients are, in comparison to patients with PS, significantly older at onset. Less of their first-degree relatives have mental disorders. They less frequently come from a broken home situation. First-rank symptoms, relevant negative symptoms, and primary hallucinations did not occur in patients with DD. Patients with DD were less frequently hospitalized, and the duration of their hospitalization was shorter. Their outcome is much better regarding employment, early retirement due to the disorder, and psychopharmacological medication. They more often had stable heterosexual partnerships and were autarkic. They had lower scores in the Disability Assessment Scale and in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. The diagnosis of DD is very stable over time. The findings of this study support the assumption that DDs are a separate entity and only exceptionally can be a prodrome of schizophrenia.

Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Schizophrenia From a Levels of Explanation Perspective.

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Hugdahl, Kenneth; Sommer, Iris E

2018-02-15

In the present article, we present a "Levels of Explanation" (LoE) approach to auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in schizophrenia. Mental phenomena can be understood at different levels of explanation, including cultural, clinical, cognitive, brain imaging, cellular, and molecular levels. Current research on AVHs is characterized by accumulation of data at all levels, but with little or no interaction of findings between levels. A second advantage with a Levels of Explanation approach is that it fosters interdisciplinarity and collaboration across traditional borders, facilitating a real breakthrough in future research. We exemplify a Levels of Explanation approach with data from 3 levels where findings at 1 level provide predictions for another level. More specifically, we show how functional neuroimaging data at the brain level correspond with behavioral data at the cognitive level, and how data at these 2 levels correspond with recent findings of changes in neurotransmitter function at the cellular level. We further discuss implications for new therapeutic interventions, and the article is ended by suggestion how future research could incorporate genetic influences on AVHs at the molecular level of explanation by providing examples for animal work.

A single dose of lysergic acid diethylamide influences gene expression patterns within the mammalian brain.

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Nichols, Charles D; Sanders-Bush, Elaine

2002-05-01

Hallucinogenic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) have profound effects on humans including hallucinations and detachment from reality. These remarkable behavioral effects have many similarities to the debilitating symptoms of neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. The effects of hallucinogens are thought to be mediated by serotonin receptor activation; however, how these drugs elicit the unusual behavioral effects remains largely a mystery, despite much research. We have undertaken the first comprehensive analysis of gene expression influenced by acute LSD administration in the mammalian brain. These studies represent a novel approach to elucidate the mechanism of action of this class of drugs. We have identified a number of genes that are predicted to be involved in the processes of synaptic plasticity, glutamatergic signaling and cytoskeletal architecture. Understanding these molecular events will lead to new insights into the etiology of disorders whose behavioral symptoms resemble the temporary effects of hallucinogenic drugs, and also may ultimately result in new therapies.

Impulse control disorders in Parkinson's disease: crossroads between neurology, psychiatry and neuroscience.

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Bugalho, Paulo; Oliveira-Maia, Albino J

2013-01-01

Non-motor symptoms contribute significantly to Parkinson's disease (PD) related disability. Impulse control disorders (ICDs) have been recently added to the behavioural spectrum of PD-related non-motor symptoms. Such behaviours are characterized by an inappropriate drive to conduct repetitive behaviours that are usually socially inadequate or result in harmful consequences. Parkinson disease impulse control disorders (PD-ICDs) have raised significant interest in the scientific and medical community, not only because of their incapacitating nature, but also because they may represent a valid model of ICDs beyond PD and a means to study the physiology of drive, impulse control and compulsive actions in the normal brain. In this review, we discuss some unresolved issues regarding PD-ICDs, including the association with psychiatric co-morbidities such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and with dopamine related side effects, such as hallucinations and dyskinesias; the relationship with executive cognitive dysfunction; and the neural underpinnings of ICDs in PD. We also discuss the contribution of neuroscience studies based on animal-models towards a mechanistic explanation of the development of PD-ICDs, specifically regarding corticostriatal control of goal directed and habitual actions.

Rumination in bipolar disorder: evidence for an unquiet mind

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Ghaznavi, Sharmin; Deckersbach, Thilo

2012-01-01

Abstract Depression in bipolar disorder has long been thought to be a state characterized by mental inactivity. However, recent research demonstrates that patients with bipolar disorder engage in rumination, a form of self-focused repetitive cognitive activity, in depressed as well as in manic states. While rumination has long been associated with depressed states in major depressive disorder, the finding that patients with bipolar disorder ruminate in manic states is unique to bipolar disord...

On the origins of endogenous thoughts.

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Tillas, Alexandros

2017-05-01

Endogenous thoughts are thoughts that we activate in a top-down manner or in the absence of the appropriate stimuli. We use endogenous thoughts to plan or recall past events. In this sense, endogenous thinking is one of the hallmarks of our cognitive lives. In this paper, I investigate how it is that we come to possess endogenous control over our thoughts. Starting from the close relation between language and thinking, I look into speech production-a process motorically controlled by the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Interestingly, IFG is also closely related to silent talking, as well as volition. The connection between IFG and volition is important given that endogenous thoughts are or at least greatly resemble voluntary actions. Against this background, I argue that IFG is key to understanding the origins of conscious endogenous thoughts. Furthermore, I look into goal-directed thinking and show that IFG plays a key role also in unconscious endogenous thinking.

Seizure Disorders: An Alternative Explanation for Students' Inattention.

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Agnew, Christina M.; Nystul, Michael S.; Conner, Mary Catherine

1998-01-01

Provides an overview of seizure disorders. They are more common than previously thought, and most have their onset in adolescence. Types of seizure disorders common in children, their symptoms, and treatment are described. A case example illustrates behavior in school and a paradoxical medication effect. (EMK)

Psychosis in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia

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Gossink FT

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Flora T Gossink,1,2 Everard GB Vijverberg,2,3 Welmoed Krudop,2 Philip Scheltens,2 Max L Stek,1 Yolande AL Pijnenburg,1,2 Annemiek Dols1,2 1Department of Old Age Psychiatry, GGZinGeest, 2Alzheimer Center & Department of Neurology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, 3Department of Neurology, HagaZiekenhuis, The Hague, the Netherlands Background: Dementia is generally characterized by cognitive impairment that can be accompanied by psychotic symptoms; for example, visual hallucinations are a core feature of dementia with Lewy bodies, and delusions are often seen in Alzheimer’s disease. However, for behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD, studies on the broad spectrum of psychotic symptoms are still lacking. The aim of this study was to systematically and prospectively subtype the wide spectrum of psychotic symptoms in probable and definite bvFTD.Methods: In this study, a commonly used and validated clinical scale that quantifies the broad spectrum of psychotic symptoms (Positive and Negative Symptom Scale was used in patients with probable and definite bvFTD (n=22 and with a primary psychiatric disorder (n=35 in a late-onset frontal lobe cohort. Median symptom duration was 2.8 years, and the patients were prospectively followed for 2 years.Results: In total, 22.7% of bvFTD patients suffered from delusions, hallucinatory behavior, and suspiciousness, although the majority of the patients exhibited negative psychotic symptoms such as social and emotional withdrawal and blunted affect (95.5% and formal thought disorders (81.8%. “Difficulty in abstract thinking” and “stereotypical thinking” (formal thought disorders differentiated bvFTD from psychiatric disorders. The combined predictors difficulty in abstract thinking, stereotypical thinking, “anxiety”, “guilt feelings,” and “tension” explained 75.4% of variance in the diagnosis of bvFTD versus psychiatric diagnoses (P<0.001.Conclusion: Delusions

Effects of Violent-Video-Game Exposure on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive-Thought Accessibility, and Aggressive Affect Among Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder.

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Engelhardt, Christopher R; Mazurek, Micah O; Hilgard, Joseph; Rouder, Jeffrey N; Bartholow, Bruce D

2015-08-01

Recent mass shootings have prompted the idea among some members of the public that exposure to violent video games can have a pronounced effect on individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Empirical evidence for or against this claim has been missing, however. To address this issue, we assigned adults with and without ASD to play a violent or nonviolent version of a customized first-person shooter video game. After they played the game, we assessed three aggression-related outcome variables (aggressive behavior, aggressive-thought accessibility, and aggressive affect). Results showed strong evidence that adults with ASD, compared with typically developing adults, are not differentially affected by acute exposure to violent video games. Moreover, model comparisons provided modest evidence against any effect of violent game content whatsoever. Findings from this experiment suggest that societal concerns that exposure to violent games may have a unique effect on adults with autism are not supported by evidence. © The Author(s) 2015.

Comparing schizophrenia symptoms in the Iban of Sarawak with other populations to elucidate clinical heterogeneity.

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McLean, Duncan; Barrett, Robert; Loa, Peter; Thara, Rangaswamy; John, Sujit; McGrath, John; Gratten, Jake; Mowry, Bryan

2015-03-01

The symptom profile of schizophrenia can vary between ethnic groups. We explored selected symptom variables previously reported to be characteristic of schizophrenia in the Iban of Sarawak in transethnic populations from Australia, India, and Sarawak, Malaysia. We tested site differences to confirm previous research, and to explore implications of differences across populations for future investigations. We recruited schizophrenia samples in Australia (n = 609), India (n = 310) and Sarawak (n = 205) primarily for the purposes of genetic studies. We analyzed seven identified variables and their relationship to site using logistic regression, including: global delusions, bizarre delusions, thought broadcast/insertion/withdrawal delusions, global hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, disorganized behavior, and prodromal duration. We identified a distinct symptom profile in our Sarawak sample. Specifically, the Iban exhibit: low frequency of thought broadcast/insertion/withdrawal delusions, high frequency of auditory hallucinations and disorganized behavior, with a comparatively short prodrome when compared with Australian and Indian populations. Understanding between-site variation in symptom profile may complement future transethnic genetic studies, and provide important clues as to the nature of differing schizophrenia expression across ethnically distinct groups. A comprehensive approach to subtyping schizophrenia is warranted, utilizing comprehensively ascertained transethnic samples to inform both schizophrenia genetics and nosology. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Factors associated with suicidal thoughts in a large community study of older adults.

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Almeida, Osvaldo P; Draper, Brian; Snowdon, John; Lautenschlager, Nicola T; Pirkis, Jane; Byrne, Gerard; Sim, Moira; Stocks, Nigel; Flicker, Leon; Pfaff, Jon J

2012-12-01

Thoughts about death and self-harm in old age have been commonly associated with the presence of depression, but other risk factors may also be important. To determine the independent association between suicidal ideation in later life and demographic, lifestyle, socioeconomic, psychiatric and medical factors. A cross-sectional study was conducted of a community-derived sample of 21 290 adults aged 60-101 years enrolled from Australian primary care practices. We considered that participants endorsing any of the four items of the Depressive Symptom Inventory -Suicidality Subscale were experiencing suicidal thoughts. We used standard procedures to collect demographic, lifestyle, psychosocial and clinical data. Anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The 2-week prevalence of suicidal ideation was 4.8%. Male gender, higher education, current smoking, living alone, poor social support, no religious practice, financial strain, childhood physical abuse, history of suicide in the family, past depression, current anxiety, depression or comorbid anxiety and depression, past suicide attempt, pain, poor self-perceived health and current use of antidepressants were independently associated with suicidal ideation. Poor social support was associated with a population attributable fraction of 38.0%, followed by history of depression (23.6%), concurrent anxiety and depression (19.7%), prevalent anxiety (15.1%), pain (13.7%) and no religious practice (11.4%). Prevalent and past mood disorders seem to be valid targets for indicated interventions designed to reduce suicidal thoughts and behaviour. However, our data indicate that social disconnectedness and stress account for a larger proportion of cases than mood disorders. Should these associations prove to be causal, then interventions that succeeded in addressing these issues would contribute the most to reducing suicidal ideation and, possibly, suicidal behaviour in later life.

Spanish version of the Thought-Action Fusion Questionnaire and its application in eating disorders

OpenAIRE

Jáuregui-Lobera, Ignacio; Bolaños-Ríos,Patricia; Santed-Germán,Miguel Angel; Garrido-Casals,Olivia

2013-01-01

I Jáuregui-Lobera,1,3 MA Santed-Germán,2 P Bolaños-Ríos,3 O Garrido-Casals3 1Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Engineering Department, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain; 2Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatments Department, UNED, Madrid, Spain; 3Behavioral Sciences Institute, Seville, Spain Purpose: The aims of the study were to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Thought-Action Fusion Questionna...

Thought and Language in Cognitive Science

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Destéfano, Mariela

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In cognitive science, the discussion about the relations between language and thought is very heterogeneous. It involves developments on linguistics, philosophy, psychology, etc. Carruthers and Boucher (1998 identify different criteria that would organize the diversity of positions about language and thought assumed in linguistics, philosophy and psychology. One of them is the constitution thesis (CT, which establishes that language is constitutively involved in thought. In this paper I would like to show some problems of CT in order to understand the relation between language and thought in cognitive science.

A diagnostic dilemma between psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder: a case report and review of the literature

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Coentre Ricardo

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction Post-traumatic stress disorder is defined as a mental disorder that arises from the experience of traumatic life events. Research has shown a high incidence of co-morbidity between post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis. Case presentation We report the case of a 32-year-old black African woman with a history of both post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis. Two years ago she presented to mental health services with auditory and visual hallucinations, persecutory delusions, suicidal ideation, recurring nightmares, hyper-arousal, and initial and middle insomnia. She was prescribed trifluoperazine (5 mg/day and began cognitive-behavioral therapy for psychosis. Her psychotic symptoms gradually resolved over a period of three weeks; however, she continues to experience ongoing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. In our case report, we review both the diagnostic and treatment issues regarding post-traumatic stress disorder with psychotic symptoms. Conclusions There are many factors responsible for the symptoms that occur in response to a traumatic event, including cognitive, affective and environmental factors. These factors may predispose both to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder and/or psychotic disorders. The independent diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder with psychotic features remains an open issue. A psychological formulation is essential regarding the appropriate treatment in a clinical setting.

[Obsessive-compulsive disorder. A hidden disorder].

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Haraldsson, Magnús

2015-02-01

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a common and often chronic psychiatric illness that significantly interferes with the patient´s functioning and quality of life. The disorder is characterized by excessive intrusive and inappropriate anxiety evoking thoughts as well as time consuming compulsions that cause significant impairment and distress. The symptoms are often accompanied by shame and guilt and the knowledge of the general public and professional community about the disorder is limited. Hence it is frequently misdiagnosed or diagnosed late. There are indications that the disorder is hereditary and that neurobiological processes are involved in its pathophysiology. Several psychological theories about the causes of obsessive-compulsive disorder are supported by empirical evidence. Evidence based treatment is either with serotoninergic medications or cognitive behavioral therapy, particularly a form of behavioral therapy called exposure response prevention. Better treatment options are needed because almost a third of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder respond inadequatly to treatment. In this review article two cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder are presented. The former case is a young man with typical symptoms that respond well to treatment and the latter is a middle aged lady with severe treatment resistant symptoms. She underwent stereotactic implantation of electrodes and received deep brain stimulation, which is an experimental treatment for severe obsessive-compulsive disorder that does not respond to any conventional treatment. Landspitali University Hospital, Division of Psychiatry. Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland.

Psychosis in patients with narcolepsy as an adverse effect of sodium oxybate

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Tomi eSarkanen

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Aim: Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are characteristic symptoms of narcolepsy, as are excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy and sleep paralysis. Narcolepsy patients may also experience daytime hallucinations unrelated to sleep-wake transitions. The effect of medication on hallucinations is of interest since treatment of narcolepsy may provoke psychotic symptoms. We aim to analyze the relation between sodium oxybate (SXB treatment and psychotic symptoms in narcolepsy patients. Furthermore, we analyze the characteristics of hallucinations to determine their nature as mainly psychotic or hypnagogic and raise a discussion about whether SXB causes psychosis or if psychosis occurs as an endogenous complication in narcolepsy.Method: We present altogether four patients with narcolepsy who experienced psychotic symptoms during treatment with SXB. In addition, we searched the literature for descriptions of hallucinations in narcolepsy and similarities and differences with psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia.Results: Three out of four patients had hallucinations typical for psychosis and one had symptoms that resembled aggravated hypnagogic hallucinations. Two patients also had delusional symptoms primarily associated with mental disorders. Tapering down SXB was tried and helped in two out of four cases. Adding antipsychotic treatment (risperidone alleviated psychotic symptoms in two cases. Conclusion: Psychotic symptoms in narcolepsy may appear during SXB treatment. Hallucinations resemble those seen in schizophrenia however the insight that symptoms are delusional is usually preserved. In case of SXB-induced psychotic symptoms or hallucinations, reducing SXB dose or adding antipsychotic medication can be tried.

Psychosis in patients with narcolepsy as an adverse effect of sodium oxybate.

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