Hypnotic suggestion and cognitive neuroscience
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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Method for Simultaneous fMRI/EEG Data Collection during a Focused Attention Suggestion for Differential Thermal Sensation
Published on: January 5, 2014
David A Oakley1, Peter W Halligan
1Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Abstract:
The growing acceptance of consciousness as a legitimate field of enquiry and the availability of functional imaging has rekindled research interest in the use of hypnosis and suggestion to manipulate subjective experience and to gain insights into healthy and pathological cognitive functioning. Current research forms two strands. The first comprises studies exploring the cognitive and neural nature of hypnosis itself. The second employs hypnosis to explore known psychological processes using specifically targeted suggestions. An extension of this second approach involves using hypnotic suggestion to create clinically informed analogues of established structural and functional neuropsychological disorders. With functional imaging, this type of experimental neuropsychopathology offers a productive means of investigating brain activity involved in many symptom-based disorders and their related phenomenology.
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