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Fosco Bernasconi

9 papers in the library · 75 citations · publishing 2013-2026

Papers

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Parkinson’s disease progression and fronto-temporal disconnection relate to identity of minor hallucinations

npj Parkinson s Disease October 30, 2026 Neza Vehar, Jevita Potheegadoo, Nathalie Heidi Meyer et al.

Abstract Presence hallucinations (PH), a non-veridical perceptions of someone appearing around you, are frequent symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD). They belong to the group of minor hallucinations, predicting later appearance of structured visual hallucinations and PD psychosis. Despite their elevated frequency and negative clinical outcomes, differences in PH subtypes have not been...

Dopaminergic therapy selectively amplifies hallucination susceptibility in patients with Parkinson’s disease with cortico-striatal hyperconnectivity

medRxiv September 3, 2026 Fosco Bernasconi, Sara Stampacchia, Lucas Burget et al. preprint

Dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) alleviates motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD) but can trigger hallucinations in a subset of patients, yet the neural basis of this selective vulnerability is unknown. Hallucinations are among the most disabling non-motor symptoms of PD, linked to social isolation, dementia and institutionalization. Using a validated robotic paradigm to induce and...

Neural Correlates of Cognitive Alterations and Minor and Structured Hallucinations in Parkinson's Disease

medRxiv July 10, 2026 Lada Kohoutová, Jevita Potheegadoo, Léa F Duong Phan Thanh et al. preprint

Background: Hallucinations, ranging from minor (MH) to structured, are a common non-motor symptom in Parkinson's disease (PD). Structured hallucinations have been associated with altered functional connectivity (FC) between dorsal/ventral attention (DAN, VAN) and default mode (DMN) networks. As structured hallucinations are linked to rapid cognitive decline and MH are often viewed as their...

Psilocybin Modulates TPJ Effective Connectivity during Out-of-Body Experiences

medRxiv June 25, 2025 Devon Stoliker, Fosco Bernasconi, Olaf Blanke et al. 1 citation preprint

Abstract Serotonergic psychedelics alter self-boundaries and can induce out-of-body experiences (OBEs)—the sense of being located outside one’s physical body. While OBEs also occur in clinical conditions and can be experimentally induced, their neural basis under psychedelics remains underexplored. In an open-label, baseline-controlled MRI study of 62 healthy adults administered psilocybin, we...

DOI: 10.1101/2025.06.24.25330245 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Psilocybin Hallucinogen Functional connectivity Cognitive psychology

Subcortical correlates of consciousness with human single neuron recordings.

Elife May 22, 2025 Michael Pereira, Nathan Faivre, Fosco Bernasconi et al. 3 citations

Subcortical brain structures such as the subthalamic nucleus or the thalamus are involved in regulating motor and cognitive behavior. However, their contribution to perceptual consciousness remains unclear, due to the inherent difficulties of recording subcortical neuronal activity in humans. Here, we asked neurological patients undergoing surgery for deep brain stimulation to detect weak...

DOI: 10.7554/elife.95272 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Human Subthalamic Thalamus Consciousness research +3

Robotically-induced auditory-verbal hallucinations: combining self-monitoring and strong perceptual priors.

Psychological Medicine February 1, 2024 Pavo Orepic, Fosco Bernasconi, Melissa Faggella et al. 9 citations

Inducing hallucinations under controlled experimental conditions in non-hallucinating individuals represents a novel research avenue oriented toward understanding complex hallucinatory phenomena, avoiding confounds observed in patients. Auditory-verbal hallucinations (AVH) are one of the most common and distressing psychotic symptoms, whose etiology remains largely unknown. Two prominent...

DOI: 10.1017/s0033291723002222 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Auditory-verbal hallucinations Delusional ideation False alarms Self-monitoring +4

Evidence accumulation relates to perceptual consciousness and monitoring

Nature Communications May 31, 2021 M. Pereira, P. Mégevand, Mi Xue Tan et al.

A fundamental scientific question concerns the neural basis of perceptual consciousness and perceptual monitoring resulting from the processing of sensory events. Although recent studies identified neurons reflecting stimulus visibility, their functional role remains unknown. Here, we show that perceptual consciousness and monitoring involve evidence accumulation. We recorded single-neuron...

Neural Sources and Underlying Mechanisms of Neural Responses to Heartbeats, and their Role in Bodily Self-consciousness: An Intracranial EEG Study.

Cerebral Cortex July 1, 2018 Hyeong-Dong Park, Fosco Bernasconi, Roy Salomon et al.

Recent research has shown that heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEPs), brain activity in response to heartbeats, are a useful neural measure for investigating the functional role of brain-body interactions in cognitive processes including self-consciousness. In 2 experiments, using intracranial electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated (1) the neural sources of HEPs, (2) the underlying...

DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhx136 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Neurons Humans Epilepsy Electroencephalography +11

Spatiotemporal Brain Dynamics of Emotional Face Processing Modulations Induced by the Serotonin 1A/2A Receptor Agonist Psilocybin

Cerebral Cortex July 16, 2013 Fosco Bernasconi, André Schmidt, Thomas Pokorny et al. 62 citations

Emotional face processing is critically modulated by the serotonergic system. For instance, emotional face processing is impaired by acute psilocybin administration, a serotonin (5-HT) 1A and 2A receptor agonist. However, the spatiotemporal brain mechanisms underlying these modulations are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the spatiotemporal brain dynamics underlying psilocybin-induced...