Paracingulate sulcus morphology is associated with hallucinations in the human brain

Jane R. Garrison, Charles Fernyhough, Simon McCarthy-Jones, Mark Haggard, Vaughan Carr, Ulrich Schall, Rodney Scott, Assen Jablensky, Bryan Mowry, Patricia Michie, Stanley Catts, Frans Henskens, Christos Pantelis, Carmel Loughland, Jon S. Simons*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    73 Citations (Scopus)
    43 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Hallucinations are common in psychiatric disorders, and are also experienced by many individuals who are not mentally ill. Here, in 153 participants, we investigate brain structural markers that predict the occurrence of hallucinations by comparing patients with schizophrenia who have experienced hallucinations against patients who have not, matched on a number of demographic and clinical variables. Using both newly validated visual classification techniques and automated, data-driven methods, hallucinations were associated with specific brain morphology differences in the paracingulate sulcus, a fold in the medial prefrontal cortex, with a 1cm reduction in sulcal length increasing the likelihood of hallucinations by 19.9%, regardless of the sensory modality in which they were experienced. The findings suggest a specific morphological basis for a pervasive feature of typical and atypical human experience.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number8956
    Pages (from-to)1-6
    Number of pages6
    JournalNature Communications
    Volume6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 17 Nov 2015

    Bibliographical note

    Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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