Real-Time Symptom Capture of Hallucinations in Schizophrenia with fMRI: Absence of Duration-Dependent Activity

While advances in the field of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provide new opportunities to study brain networks underlying the experience of hallucinations in psychosis, there are methodological challenges unique to symptom-capture studies.

We extracted brain networks activated during hallucination-capture for schizophrenia patients when fMRI data collected from two sites was merged (combined N = 27). A multidimensional analysis technique was applied, which would allow separation of brain networks involved in the hallucinatory experience itself from those involved in the motor response of indicating the beginning and end of the perceived hallucinatory experience. To avoid reverse inference when attributing a function (e.g., a hallucination) to anatomical regions, it was required that longer hallucinatory experiences produce extended brain responses relative to shorter.

For radio-speech sound files, an auditory perception brain network emerged, and displayed speech-duration-dependent hemodynamic responses (HDRs). However, in the hallucination-capture blocks, no network showed hallucination-duration-dependent HDRs, but a retrieved network that was anatomically classified as motor response emerged.

During symptom capture of hallucinations during fMRI, no HDR showed duration dependence, but a brain network anatomically matching the motor response network was retrieved. Previous reports on brain networks detected by fMRI during hallucination capture are reviewed in this context; namely, that the brain networks interpreted as involved in hallucinations may in fact be involved only in the motor response indicating the onset of the hallucination.