Schizophrenia Bulletin
August 8, 2018
T. M. Luhrmann, Ben Alderson-Day, Vaughan Bell et al.
74 citations
Trauma can contribute to voice-hearing but is not necessary for it. This article uses ethnographic and other data to show multiple pathways to voice-hearing in both clinical and nonclinical populations, excluding known causes like drugs or epilepsy. Trauma sometimes plays a major role, sometimes a minor role, and sometimes no role at all. Distinct phenomenological patterns in voice-hearing may reflect different salience of trauma for those who hear voices.
Comprehensive Psychiatry
July 1, 2021
Josef J Bless, Kenneth Hugdahl, Bodil Kråkvik et al.
Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations (HHHs) are common in the general population, with auditory HHHs occurring in 6.8% of people, multimodal HHHs in 12.3%, and out-of-body experiences at sleep onset/offset in 32.2%. Individuals who experience only auditory HHHs report less frequent, less disturbing, and more neutral hallucinations, with less influence on behavior and social life, compared to those who also have daytime hallucinations. They also score similarly to non-hallucinating individuals on mental health, anxiety, childhood happiness, and wellbeing measures. The average age of first onset for purely auditory HHHs is 28.2 years, later than for daytime-only (20.9 years) or combined groups (19.1 years).
Psychiatry Research
February 1, 2019
Frank Larøi, Josef J Bless, Julien Laloyaux et al.
Hallucination prevalence decreases with age across all sensory modalities—auditory, visual, olfactory, and tactile—as well as for sensed presence and hypnagogic/hypnopompic types. In a large representative Norwegian sample, young adults (19–30 years) reported the highest rates, middle-aged (31–60) intermediate, and older adults (61–96) the lowest. Anxiety partially mediated this age effect, while depression acted as a partial suppressor. Co-occurrence of auditory and visual hallucinations was minimal across all age groups. The general population reports a wider variety of hallucination modalities than is typically seen in clinical populations.
Perceptual and Motor Skills
August 1, 2010
Svend Davanger, Øyvind Ellingsen, Are Holen et al.
Meditation that emphasizes a relaxed focus of attention, where thoughts and sensations arise freely, activates specific frontal brain areas distinct from concentrative control tasks. Using fMRI in experienced Acem meditation practitioners, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (BA47) showed significantly greater activation during repetition of a meditation sound compared to concentrative meditation-like tasks. This meditation-specific brain activation did not habituate over time but increased with continuous meditation bouts. The findings suggest that relaxed-focus meditation engages distinct prefrontal cortex regions, offering insight into the neurobiological correlates of such practices.
Sarah Weber, André Aleman, Kenneth Hugdahl
preprint
The brain's default mode network (DMN), traditionally considered a task-negative network active during rest, and the extrinsic mode network (EMN), active during demanding tasks, both contribute to low-effort cognitive processing. Using fMRI with a Stroop task, participants alternated between rest, low effort (word reading), and high effort (color naming). The DMN was more active during low effort than high effort, showing gradual regulation based on demand. The typical anti-correlation between DMN and EMN occurred only during low effort, not rest or high effort. This challenges the view of the DMN as solely task-negative, suggesting both networks support low-effort cognition, while rest and high effort are dominated by DMN and EMN respectively.