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Detecting Pre-Stimulus Source-Level Effects on Object Perception with Magnetoencephalography
Published on: July 26, 2019
Specific and unspecific auditory hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia: a magnetoencephalographic study
Udo Reulbach1, Stefan Bleich, Christian Maihofner
1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.
Background/Aims:
Different neuroimaging techniques have indicated that auditory association and language cortices are active in patients with schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations. Auditory verbal hallucinations are thought to arise from a disorder of inner speech, but little is known about their origin.
Methods:
Spontaneous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) measurements were recorded with a 74-channel two-sensor system (BIOMAGNES II) in 16 patients with schizophrenia and 8 healthy subjects in frequency ranges from 2 to 6 and 12.5 to 30 Hz. Eight patients had auditory hallucinations during the MEG recordings.
Results:
The total group of patients with schizophrenia showed a statistically significant elevation of the number of dipoles and dipole density maxima in slow frequency ranges compared to healthy subjects (p <0.001). Significant dipole activities in the fast frequency range were only found during auditory hallucinations (p <0.001). Dipole localization was concentrated in frontal and temporal regions depending on different qualities of hallucinations. In patients with external imperative voices we found a parallel activation of the dorsolateral frontal and temporal cortex.
Conclusion:
We conclude that various auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia are induced by different neuronal activities and may be represented by different cortical regions.
