Command auditory verbal hallucinations (CAVH) are a subtype of auditory hallucinations perceived as instructing the hearer to perform specific actions, carrying an elevated risk of harm due to potential compliance with harmful behaviours. Despite the risk, the prevalence, clinical associations and content of CAVH in first episode psychosis (FEP) remain largely underexplored, leaving important...
Frontiers in Human NeuroscienceMarch 2, 2026Juan Camilo Castro Martínez, Felipe Botero-Rodríguez, Jesús Ramírez-Bermúdez et al.
Neuropsychiatry is a transdisciplinary field at the intersection of neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, and humanities. Despite this strategic position, a comprehensive framework is still needed to bridge these domains. This review examines the historical evolution of how neurological, mental, and neuropsychiatric symptoms have been conceptualized, from antiquity to contemporary models, using...
Delusions frequently involve strong beliefs about, or interactions with, illusory social agents. Although such agents have been systematically described in hallucinations, few studies have investigated their nature and identity in delusions. We identified 205 electronic mental health records describing the content of delusions from the Clinical Record Interactive Search platform at South London...
Hallucinations are deeply intriguing phenomena but conducting research on them can be challenging. Ineffable experiences can test the limits of traditional research methods and can rely on individu...
Abstract Altered dopamine transmission is thought to influence the formation of persecutory delusions. However, despite extensive evidence from clinical studies there is little experimental evidence on how modulating the dopamine system changes social attributions related to paranoia, and the salience of beliefs more generally. 27 healthy male participants received 150mg L-DOPA, 3mg...
Paranoia is the most common symptom of psychosis but paranoid concerns occur throughout the general population. Here, we argue for an evolutionary approach to paranoia across the spectrum of severity that accounts for its complex social phenomenology — including the perception of conspiracy and selective identification of perceived persecutors — and considers how it can be understood in light...
That trauma can play a significant role in the onset and maintenance of voice-hearing is one of the most striking and important developments in the recent study of psychosis. Yet the finding that trauma increases the risk for hallucination and for psychosis is quite different from the claim that trauma is necessary for either to occur. Trauma is often but not always associated with...
Poletti, Gebhardt, Krueger, and Raballo (2017) raise the important issue of a careful phenomenological approach in understanding the experience of psychosis in their helpful commentary on our recent article (Bell, Mills, Modinos, & Wilkinson, 2017). To summarize their main concern, they argue that the breadth of subjective and intersubjective experience in psychosis cannot be reduced to...
The positive symptoms of psychosis largely involve the experience of illusory social actors and yet our current measures of social cognition, at best, only weakly predict their presence. We review evidence to suggest that the range of current approaches in social cognition is not sufficient to explain the fundamentally social nature of these experiences. We argue that social agent...
Despite the recent proliferation of scientific, clinical, and narrative accounts of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs), the phenomenology of voice hearing remains opaque and undertheorized. In this article, we outline an interdisciplinary approach to understanding hallucinatory experiences which seeks to demonstrate the value of the humanities and social sciences to advancing knowledge in...
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...
Involuntary movements occur in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders and culturally influenced dissociative states (e.g., delusions of alien control and attributions of spirit possession). However, the underlying brain processes are poorly understood. We combined suggestion and fMRI in 15 highly hypnotically susceptible volunteers to investigate changes in brain activity accompanying...
The feeling of voluntary control and awareness of movement is fundamental to our notions of selfhood and responsibility for actions, yet can be lost in neuropsychiatric syndromes (e.g. delusions of control, non-epileptic seizures) and culturally influenced dissociative states (e.g. attributions of spirit possession). The brain processes involved remain poorly understood. We used suggestion and...
The study describes the Cardiff Anomalous Perceptions Scale (CAPS), a new validated measure of perceptual anomalies. The 32-item CAPS measure is a reliable, self-report scale, which uses neutral language, demonstrates high content validity, and includes subscales that measure distress, intrusiveness, and frequency of anomalous experience. The CAPS was completed by a general population sample of...