Imagine hearing a voice that screams, “You’re no good at this and
you’re going to fail every exam” but not knowing where it came from. Or
suddenly seeing a poisonous snake slithering towards you. Even if you’ve
never had a hallucination – a sensory event that is experienced as
real, despite having no material world cause – it’s easy to imagine how
frightening they can be.
Despite advances in brain imaging technology, we still have a limited understanding of the biological processes behind hallucinations. But new research has discovered that a key region of the brain, the paracingulate sulcus, may underlie the experience. This delivers a glimmer of insight into why some people are more likely to hallucinate and provides a neural target for treatments that aim to tackle such terrifying experiences.
When someone has a hallucination, the basic problem is that they fail to distinguish between real events and those created by the imagination. As a result, hallucinations have been described as an impairment in “reality
monitoring”.
Despite advances in brain imaging technology, we still have a limited understanding of the biological processes behind hallucinations. But new research has discovered that a key region of the brain, the paracingulate sulcus, may underlie the experience. This delivers a glimmer of insight into why some people are more likely to hallucinate and provides a neural target for treatments that aim to tackle such terrifying experiences.
When someone has a hallucination, the basic problem is that they fail to distinguish between real events and those created by the imagination. As a result, hallucinations have been described as an impairment in “reality
monitoring”.