Without insight accompanied with deteriorated brain functional alterations in healthy individuals with auditory verbal hallucinations: a pilot study

AbstractFew studies have reported on brain functional differences between healthy individuals with auditory verbal hallucinations (Hi-AVH) with and without insight, so we designed a study to address this knowledge gap. We enrolled 12 Hi-AVH with insight, 15 Hi-AVH without insight, and 15 AVH-free controls (Healthy controls). Global functional connectivity density (gFCD) mapping was used to estimate brain networks. We found that the most common alterations in both Hi-AVH groups were increased gFCD in superior parietal lobule and superior temporal gyrus. We also found that distinct brain functional patterns of Hi-AVH without insight comprised lower gFCD in the frontal lobe oculomotor area, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, supramarginal gyrus, primary auditory cortex, sensorimotor cortex, ventral anterior, and posterior cingulate Our pilot findings support the hypothesis that abnormal reciprocal action in the circuits for processing perception, memory, language, and attentional control may be pathological features of auditory verbal hallucinations.

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1H MRS Study of Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Healthy Individuals before and after Lithium Administration

Neuropsychopharmacology ◽

10.1038/sj.npp.1300520 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 29 (10) ◽

pp. 1918-1924 ◽

Cited By ~ 54

Author(s):

Paolo Brambilla ◽

Jeffrey A Stanley ◽

Roberto B Sassi ◽

Mark A Nicoletti ◽

Alan G Mallinger ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Healthy Individuals ◽

1H Mrs ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽

Before And After

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Contribution of Human Prefrontal Cortex to Delay Performance

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/089892998562636 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 167-177 ◽

Cited By ~ 149

Author(s):

Linda L. Chao ◽

Robert T. Knight

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Neural Activity ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Silent Period ◽

Primary Auditory Cortex ◽

Association Cortex ◽

Focal Lesions ◽

Delay Performance ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽

Auditory Association Cortex

Neurological patients with focal lesions in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and age-matched control subjects were tested on an auditory version of the delayed-match-to-sample task employing environmental sounds. Subjects had to indicate whether a cue (S1) and a subsequent target sound (S2) were identical. On some trials, S1 and S2 were separated by a silent period of 5 sec. On other trials, the 5-sec delay between S1 and S2 was filled with irrelevant tone pips that served as distractors. Behaviorally, frontal patients were impaired by the presence of distractors. Electrophysiologically, patients generated enhanced primary auditory cortex-evoked responses to the tone pips, supporting a failure in inhibitory control of sensory processing after prefrontal damage. Intrahemispheric reductions of neural activity generated in the auditory association cortex and additional intrahemispheric reductions of attention-related frontal activity were also observed in the prefrontal patients. Together, these findings suggest that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is crucial for gating distracting information as well as maintaining distributed intrahemispheric neural activity during auditory working memory.

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Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over vmPFC modulates interactions between reward and emotion in delay discounting

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-019-55157-z ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Aurélie L. Manuel ◽

Nicholas W. G. Murray ◽

Olivier Piguet

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Delay Discounting ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Positive Emotions ◽

Healthy Individuals ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Cathodal Tdcs ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽

Stimulation Of

AbstractDelay discounting requires computing trade-offs between immediate-small rewards and later-larger rewards. Negative and positive emotions shift decisions towards more or less impulsive responses, respectively. Models have conceptualized this trade-off by describing an interplay between “emotional” and “rational” processes, with the former involved during immediate choices and relying on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and the latter involved in long-term choices and relying on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Whether stimulation of the vmPFC modulates emotion-induced delay discounting remains unclear. We applied tDCS over the vmPFC in 20 healthy individuals during a delay discounting task following an emotional (positive, negative) or neutral induction. Our results showed that cathodal tDCS increased impulsivity after positive emotions in high impulsivity trials. For low impulsivity trials, anodal tDCS decreased impulsivity following neutral induction compared with emotional induction. Our findings demonstrate that the vmPFC integrates reward and emotion most prominently in situations of increased impulsivity, whereas when higher cognitive control is required the vmPFC appears to be less engaged, possibly due to recruitment of the dlPFC. Understanding how stimulation and emotion influence decision-making at the behavioural and neural levels holds promise to develop interventions to reduce impulsivity.

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Functional anatomy of verbal fluency in people with schizophrenia and those at genetic risk

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.176.1.52 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 176 (1) ◽

pp. 52-60 ◽

Cited By ~ 134

Author(s):

Sean A. Spence ◽

Peter F. Liddle ◽

Martin D. Stefan ◽

Jonathan S. E. Hellewell ◽

Tonmoy Sharma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Genetic Risk ◽

Verbal Fluency ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Functional Anatomy ◽

Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽

Anterior Cingulate ◽

Left Dlpfc ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽

Normal Controls

BackgroundPET studies of verbal fluency in schizophrenia report a failure of ‘deactivation’ of left superior temporal gyrus (STG) in the presence of activation of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which deficit has been attributed to underlying ‘functional disconnectivity’.AimTo test whether these findings provide trait-markers for schizophrenia.MethodWe used H215O PET to examine verbal fluency in 10 obligate carriers of the predisposition to schizophrenia, 10 stable patients and 10 normal controls.ResultsWe found no evidence of a failure of left STG deactivation in carriers or patients. Instead, patients failed to deactivate the precuneus relative to other groups. We found no differences in functional connectivity between left DLPFC and left STG but patients exhibited significant disconnectivity between left DLPFC and anterior cingulate cortex.ConclusionsFailure of left STG ‘deactivation’ and left fronto-temporal disconnectivity are not consistent findings in schizophrenia; neither are they trait-markers for genetic risk. Prefrontal functional disconnectivity here may characterise the schizophrenic phenotype.

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Cortical Regions Involved in the Generation of Musical Structures during Improvisation in Pianists

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2007.19.5.830 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 19 (5) ◽

pp. 830-842 ◽

Cited By ~ 101

Author(s):

Sara L. Bengtsson ◽

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi ◽

Fredrik Ullén

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Response Selection ◽

Premotor Cortex ◽

Posterior Part ◽

Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽

The Right ◽

Musical Creation

Studies on simple pseudorandom motor and cognitive tasks have shown that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and rostral premotor areas are involved in free response selection. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate whether these brain regions are also involved in free generation of responses in a more complex creative behavior: musical improvisation. Eleven professional pianists participated in the study. In one condition, Improvise, the pianist improvised on the basis of a visually displayed melody. In the control condition, Reproduce, the participant reproduced his previous improvisation from memory. Participants were able to reproduce their improvisations with a high level of accuracy, and the contrast Improvise versus Reproduce was thus essentially matched in terms of motor output and sensory feedback. However, the Improvise condition required storage in memory of the improvisation. We therefore also included a condition FreeImp, where the pianist improvised but was instructed not to memorize his performance. To locate brain regions involved in musical creation, we investigated the activations in the Improvise-Reproduce contrast that were also present in FreeImp contrasted with a baseline rest condition. Activated brain regions included the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the presupplementary motor area, the rostral portion of the dorsal premotor cortex, and the left posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus. We suggest that these regions are part of a network involved in musical creation, and discuss their possible functional roles.

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