Pain response in depersonalization: a functional imaging study using hypnosis in healthy subjects.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics January 1, 2007 Christian H Röder, Matthias Michal, G Overbeck et al.
Hypnosis-induced depersonalization in healthy subjects reduces pain perception by dampening activity in brain regions involved in sensory and emotional processing of pain, including the somatosensory cortex, parietal cortex, prefrontal cortex, putamen, and amygdala. Pain intensity ratings dropped significantly from normal waking to the hypnotic depersonalization state. The findings suggest that depersonalization alters the neural representation of the body, potentially explaining the 'out-of-body' experience and reduced pain sensitivity. Although the small sample of 7 subjects limits generalizability, hypnotic depersonalization may help study mechanisms underlying self-injury and mind-body interactions in psychosomatic disorders.