Frank Larøi

André Aleman

Hearing voices when nobody speaks or seeing objects no one else sees'hallucinations are intriguing phenomena that have puzzled clinicians, researchers, and lay people alike for centuries. In this book, authors Andr? Aleman and Frank Lar'i review the latest research on the cognitive and neural bases of hallucinations and outline their unique neurobiology by drawing on evidence from brain imaging and neurotransmission studies. Detailed attention is paid to hallucination characteristics in different forms of psychosis as well as other clinical groups and conditions, such as brain damage, Charles Bonnet syndrome, dementia, and chemical substance abuse. The authors integrate the wealth of recent findings into a cohesive framework and put forward a comprehensive, multicomponent model of hallucinations. Finally, treatment of hallucinations is discussed, ranging from pharmacotherapy and cognitive therapy to transcranial magnetic stimulation. A comprehensive list of available hallucination questionnaires and scales is also included as a handy clinical assessment resource.

The Science of Idiosyncratic Perception

Hallucinations

Hallucinations are a troublesome and distressing symptom for countless patients who suffer from psychiatric or neurological conditions. This book brings together the work of leading experts in this area, to provide a practical guide to the assessment, evaluation, and treatment of hallucinations.

A Guide to Treatment and Management

Paul Allen

Johanna C. Badcock

Kelly M. Diederen

There has been a recent surge of interest in auditory hallucinations (AH) in schizophrenia compared to those experienced by non-clinical (i.e. healthy) individuals. This interest stems in no small part from a keen awareness of the fact that progress in developing more effective treatments for AH in psychosis has been seriously hampered by our limited understanding of the cognitive and biological mechanisms involved. The prevailing notion that AH in clinical and non-clinical populations share the same features and underlying mechanisms - the continuum hypothesis - has been seriously challenged by a growing list of differences, as well as similarities, between these groups. At the phenomenological level this is exemplified in the highly negative content of AH in patients and the markedly earlier age of onset of AH in non-patients. Similarly, several recent studies point to significant differences in cognition, language lateralization and, possibly, dopamine function between these groups. These findings have important implications for the design of future studies, and raise considerable doubt about the adequacy of modelling the functional mechanisms of clinical AH on the basis of non-clinical populations. In short, the time seems ripe to re-evaluate the continuum hypothesis and provide a forum to present alternative perspectives on the functional pathways leading to AH in clinical and non-clinical groups. Such a forum is also timely in view of the renewed interest in AH in other (non-schizophrenic) clinical groups, again examining similarities and differences between such groups. Preliminary studies, for instance, have shown that AH in certain clinical populations (e.g. bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, dissociative disorder) share similar phenomenological features with AH in schizophrenia. However, the implications of such findings are not fully understood, and studies have not adequately examined potential differences between AH in these groups. The goal of this Frontiers Research Topic, therefore, is take the opportunity to bring together research exploring differences and similarities in mechanisms of AH in clinical and non-clinical groups and to stimulate the development of new explanatory models which explicitly link the phenomenological characteristics of AH with underlying mechanisms.

Frank Larøi

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