Musical hallucinosis in acquired deafness. Phenomenology and brain substrate.
T D Griffiths
Brain October 2000 DOI: 10.1093/brain/123.10.2065 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case series Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 6 |
| Population | Subjects with musical hallucinations following acquired deafness |
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key findings | PET showed no effect in primary auditory cortices but clusters of correlated activity in posterior temporal lobes, right basal ganglia, cerebellum, and inferior frontal cortices, consistent with the proposed neuropsychological model. |
Abstract
Six subjects with musical hallucinations following acquired deafness are described. The subjects all experienced the condition in the absence of any other features to suggest epilepsy or psychosis. I propose a neuropsychological model for the condition consistent with detailed observation of the subjects' phenomenology. The model is based on spontaneous activity within a cognitive module for the analysis of temporal pattern in segmented sound. Functional imaging was carried out to test the hypothesis that musical hallucinosis is due to activity within such a module, for which the neural substrate is a distributed network distinct from the primary auditory cortex. PET was carried out on the six subjects to identify areas where brain activity increased as a function of the severity of the hallucination. In a group analysis, no effect was demonstrated in the primary auditory cortices. Clusters of correlated activity were demonstrated in the posterior temporal lobes, the right basal ganglia, the cerebellum and the inferior frontal cortices. This network is similar to that previously demonstrated during the normal perception and imagery of patterned-segmented sound, and is consistent with the proposed neuropsychological and neural mechanism.
Comparable studies
Other case reports and case series on philosophy of mind, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| How does it feel to lack a sense of boundaries? A case study of a long-term mindfulness meditator. A single long-term mindfulness practitioner (S) with 40 years of practice in... | 2015 | Qualitative case study | n = 1 |
| An extended case study on the phenomenology of sequence-space synesthesia Single adult with sequence-space synesthesia | 2014 | Phenomenological case study | n = 1 |
| "I can't tell whether it's my hand": a pilot study of the neurophenomenology of body representation during the rubber hand illusion in trauma-related disorders. Individuals with the dissociative subtype of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | 2016 | Case series | n = 3 |
| Neurophenomenology of an Altered State of Consciousness: An fMRI Case Study. A single research participant with self-proclaimed ecstatic Kundalini meditative... | 2016 | Case study | n = 1 |
| Multimodal neurophenomenology of advanced concentration absorption meditation: An intensively sampled case study of Jhana. One advanced meditator with over 23,000 hours of meditation practice | 2024 | Case study | n = 1 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 7
- Are There Islands of Awareness? Trends in Neurosciences December 10, 2019
- Drug-induced musical hallucination. Frontiers in Pharmacology 2024
- Musical hallucinations, secondary delusions, and lack of insight: results from a cohort study Frontiers in Psychiatry September 28, 2023
- Echoes of the Mind: Auditory Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Cureus August 2024
- Mapping the contents of consciousness during musical imagery bioRxiv Preprint Server November 20, 2020
and 2 more in the library