Abstract

Loss or reduction of awareness is common in neuropsychiatric disorders and culturally influenced dissociative phenomena but the underlying brain mechanisms are poorly understood. fMRI was combined with suggestions for automatic writing in 18 healthy highly hypnotically suggestible individuals in a within-subjects design to determine whether clinical alterations in awareness of thought and movement can be experimentally modelled and studied independently of illness. Subjective ratings of control, ownership, and awareness of thought and movement, and fMRI data were collected following suggestions for thought insertion and alien control of writing movement, with and without loss of awareness. Subjective ratings confirmed that suggestions were effective. At the neural level, our main findings indicated that loss of awareness for both thought and movement during automatic writing was associated with reduced activation in a predominantly left-sided posterior cortical network including BA 7 (superior parietal lobule and precuneus), and posterior cingulate cortex, involved in self-related processing and awareness of the body in space. Reduced activity in posterior parietal cortices may underlie specific clinical and cultural alterations in awareness of thought and movement. Clinically, these findings may assist development of imaging assessments for loss of awareness of psychological origin, and interventions such as neurofeedback.

Details

Title
Brain mechanisms for loss of awareness of thought and movement
Author
Walsh, Eamonn 1 ; Oakley, David A 2 ; Halligan, Peter W 3 ; Mehta, Mitul A 4 ; Deeley, Quinton 5 

 Cultural and Social Neuroscience Group, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King’s College London, UK; Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, UK 
 Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, UK 
 School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK 
 Cultural and Social Neuroscience Group, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King’s College London, UK; Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, King’s College London, UK 
 Cultural and Social Neuroscience Group, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King’s College London, UK 
Pages
793-801
Publication year
2017
Publication date
May 2017
Publisher
Oxford University Press
ISSN
17495016
e-ISSN
17495024
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3171534820
Copyright
© The Author(s) (2017). Published by Oxford University Press. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.