scholarly journals The neuropsychology of hallucinations

2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-48
Author(s):  
D.M. Pavlovic ◽  
Aleksandra Pavlovic ◽  
Maja Lackovic
Keyword(s):  
Cerebral Cortex ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Sensory Systems ◽  
Brain Lesions ◽  
Inner Speech ◽  
Visual Hallucinations ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Auditory Verbal Hallucinations ◽  
Organic Lesions

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.

scholarly journals Disentangling craving- and valence-driven brain responses to smoking cues in individuals with nicotine use disorder

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amelie Haugg ◽  
Andrei Manoliu ◽  
Ronald Sladky ◽  
Lea M Hulka ◽  
Matthias Kirschner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Smoking Cessation ◽  
Nicotine Dependence ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Cue Reactivity ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Smoking Cues

Tobacco smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death and disease worldwide. Most smokers want to quit, but relapse rates are high. To improve current smoking cessation treatments, a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of nicotine dependence and related craving behavior is needed. Studies on cue-driven cigarette craving have been a particularly useful tool for investigating the neural mechanisms of drug craving. Here, functional neuroimaging studies in humans have identified a core network of craving-related brain responses to smoking cues that comprises of amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and ventral striatum. However, most functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) cue-reactivity studies do not adjust their stimuli for emotional valence, a factor assumed to confound craving-driven brain responses to smoking cues. Here, we investigated the influence of emotional valence on key addiction brain areas by disentangling craving- and valence-related brain responses with parametric modulators in 32 smokers. For one of the suggested key regions for addiction, the amygdala, we observed significantly stronger brain responses to the valence aspect of the presented images than to the craving aspect. Our results emphasize the need for carefully selecting stimulus material for cue-reactivity paradigms, in particular with respect to emotional valence. Further, they can help designing future research on teasing apart the diverse psychological dimensions that comprise nicotine dependence, and, therefore, can lead to a more precise mapping of craving-associated brain areas, an important step towards more tailored smoking cessation treatments.

scholarly journals Monitoring Processes and Their Neuronal Correlates as the Basis of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in a Non-clinical Sample

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Storchak ◽  
Justin Hudak ◽  
Thomas Dresler ◽  
Florian B. Haeussinger ◽  
Andreas J. Fallgatter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Clinical Sample ◽  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
Inner Speech ◽  
Precentral Gyrus ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Auditory Verbal Hallucinations

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are a characteristic symptom of psychosis. An influential cognitive model accounting for the mechanisms in the generation of AVHs describes a defective monitoring of inner speech, leading to the misidentification of internally generated thoughts as externally generated events. In this study, we utilized an inner speech paradigm during a simultaneous measurement with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in order to replicate the findings of neural correlates of inner speech and auditory verbal imagery (AVI) in healthy subjects, reported in earlier studies, and to provide the first validation of the paradigm for fNIRS measurements. To this end, 20 healthy subjects were required to generate and silently recite first and second person sentences in their own voice (inner speech) and imagine the same sentences in a different, alien voice (AVI). Furthermore, questionnaires were deployed to assess the predisposition to acoustic hallucinations and schizotypal traits to investigate their connection to activation patterns associated with inner speech and monitoring processes. The results showed that both methods, fNIRS and fMRI, exhibited congruent activations in key brain areas, claimed to be associated with monitoring processes, indicating that the paradigm seems to be applicable using fNIRS alone. Furthermore, the results showed similar brain areas activated during inner speech and monitoring processes to those from earlier studies. However, our results indicate that the activations were dependent more on the sentence form and less on the imaging condition, showing more active brain areas associated with second person sentences. Integration of the sentence construction into the model of inner speech and deficient monitoring processes as the basis for the formation of AVHs should be considered in further studies. Furthermore, negative correlations between questionnaires' scores and activations in precentral gyrus and premotor cortex indicate a relationship of schizotypal characteristics and a deficient activation pattern.

scholarly journals A Connectomic Atlas of the Human Cerebrum—Chapter 8: The Posterior Cingulate Cortex, Medial Parietal Lobe, and Parieto-Occipital Sulcus

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (suppl_1) ◽  
pp. S350-S371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cordell M Baker ◽  
Joshua D Burks ◽  
Robert G Briggs ◽  
Andrew K Conner ◽  
Chad A Glenn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cerebral Cortex ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Functional Significance ◽  
Parietal Lobe ◽  
Structural Connectivity ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Posterior Cingulate ◽  
Human Connectome Project

ABSTRACT In this supplement, we build on work previously published under the Human Connectome Project. Specifically, we seek to show a comprehensive anatomic atlas of the human cerebrum demonstrating all 180 distinct regions comprising the cerebral cortex. The location, functional connectivity, and structural connectivity of these regions are outlined, and where possible a discussion is included of the functional significance of these areas. In part 8, we specifically address regions relevant to the posterior cingulate cortex, medial parietal lobe, and the parieto-occipital sulcus.

Complex auditory musical hallucinations with ambivalent feelings

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. e245397
Author(s):  
Hugo Canas-Simião ◽  
Sandra Teles Nascimento ◽  
João Reis ◽  
Carina Freitas
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dysfunction ◽  
Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 ◽  
Clinical Case ◽  
Vascular Risk ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Auditory Verbal Hallucinations ◽  
Bilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss ◽  
Musical Memory ◽  
The Brain

A 78-year-old woman with hypertension, diabetes mellitus type 2 and bilateral sensorineural hearing loss was referenced to geriatric psychiatry consultation. She presented cognitive dysfunction, erotomanic delusion and complex musical hallucinations (MH), described as hearing her neighbour singing a familiar church song along with bells in the background, making comments and talking to her. A computed tomography (CT) of the brain detected small right nucleocapsular and bilateral external capsules hypodensities of presumed vascular aetiology during hospitalisation. MH are a rare phenomenon with heterogeneous aetiology. Most frequently, the cause is hearing impairment; other causes include social isolation, cognitive dysfunction, vascular risk factors and medication. Studies suggest that some brain areas related to musical memory circuitry might be related and not fully mapped. Auditory verbal hallucinations with a voice that either comments, talks or sings to the patient have never been described in the literature, making this clinical case attractive.

Abstract TP319: Risk Factors of Post-stroke Epilepsy

Stroke ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (Suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatyana Danilova ◽  
Dina Khasanova
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Ischemic Stroke ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Cerebral Arteries ◽  
Transcranial Doppler Sonography ◽  
Epileptic Seizures ◽  
Brain Lesions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Ischemic Brain ◽  
Post Stroke

Purpose: The aim of the study was to identify the risk factors for seizures in patients with ischemic stroke using clinical, functional, neuroimaging research methods. Materials and methods: The results of the complex survey of 468 patients suffering from ischemic stroke (256 patients experienced epileptic seizures and 203 experienced no epileptic seizures) are presented. The diagnostic procedures included clinical evaluation, magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, extracranial and transcranial Doppler sonography. In addition the assessment of the rate of sodium lithium countertransport (the marker of genetically determined on transport mechanisms of cell membranes) in patients with c ischemic stroke with the development of epileptic seizures and no seizures was carried out. Results: The focal seizures are the most common (92,5%). Cortical ischemic brain lesions prevailed in patients with seizures (81,1%), whereas in the control group cortex was affected in 38,9% patients (χ2=89.2, <0,001). Stenosis of cerebral arteries was more common in patients with epilepsy (82.3%) compared to patients without seizures (74.4%, <0.05). Reduced cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) in vertebro-basilar basin was more frequently detected in patients with seizures (85.9%, p<0.001) compared to controls (71.6%). CVR < 10% was registered in 33.8% patients with seizures versus 13.4% controls (p<0.001). Patients with epileptic seizures showed cerebral perfusion reduction mostly in vertebro-basilar basin (85.9%) rather than in carotid basin (61.2%, p<0.001). Patients experienced epileptic seizures had high rates of sodium-lithium antitransport (> 346 μmol/liter cells x hour) more often than patients without epileptic seizures (52,6% and 35,5%, respectively, <0,05). Patients experienced epileptic seizures with high rates of sodium-lithium antitransport had a higher seizure frequency than patients with low rates of sodium-lithium antitransport. Conclusion: Thus, cortical ischemic brain lesions, significant stenosis of cerebral arteries, predominant perfusion reserve reduction in the posterior cerebral circulation, as well as a high rate of sodium lithium countertransport may be considered as risk factors for post-stroke epilepsy.

Neurotransmitter Levels in Brains of Chronically Jiawey Siwu-Treated Rats

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (04) ◽  
pp. 507-519
Author(s):  
Sue Yu ◽  
Yee-Yung Ng ◽  
Zhi-Hong Jian ◽  
Chien-Chih Chen ◽  
Mei-Shiun Lu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cerebral Cortex ◽  
Medulla Oblongata ◽  
Excitatory Amino Acids ◽  
Aminobutyric Acid ◽  
Vanillylmandelic Acid ◽  
Dose Dependency ◽  
Sprague Dawley ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Sprague Dawley Rats ◽  
Body Weights

Levels of monoamines and metabolites, excitatory amino acids, and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) were investigated in discrete brain areas of chronic Jiawey Siwu (JS)-treated rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were dosed orally for 3 months with normal saline or JS at 0.21, 1.05 or 4.2 g/kg/day. Body weights of these four groups were similar over 3 months. Most effects of JS revealed a dose dependency with levels of neurotransmitters. Levels of norepinephrine (NE) and epinephrine (EPI) in cerebral cortex; EPI, vanillylmandelic acid (VMA), dopamine (DA) and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) in medulla oblongata; DA in midbrain; NE and 5-HT in amygdala; and 5-HT in hypothalamus had decreased in JS-treated rats. 3-Methoxytyramine (3-MT) in cerebral cortex; 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid (5-HIAA) in medulla oblongata; NE, 3-MT and homovanillic acid (HVA) in pons; EPI and 3-MT in midbrain; 3-MT and HVA in amygdala; 3-MT, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC), HVA and 5-HIAA in cerebellum; HVA in hypothalamus; and DOPAC and HVA in hippocampus had all increased in JS-treated rats. In pons, 5-HT increased with low and decreased with high JS doses. Ratios of DA/3-MT in pons and midbrain; DA/HVA in pons and cerebellum; and 5-HT/5-HIAA in medulla oblongata, cerebellum and hypothalamus had decreased. Furthermore, aspartate (ASP) and glutamate (GLU) levels had decreased in cerebral cortex, midbrain, hypothalamus and hippocampus or amygdala, and increased in pons. GABA levels were reduced in cerebral cortex, and higher in medulla oblongata, pons, amygdala, cerebellum, hippocampus and striatum of JS-treated rats. These results indicate that the synthesis and (or) metabolism of NE, DA, EPI and 5-HT, and the levels of ASP, GLU and GABA in rat brains were differentially regionally altered by JS, which may contribute to the central manifestations of JS treatment.

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