title: In search of a deep psychobiology of hypnosis: visionary hypotheses for a new millennium.
abstract: This search for the deep psychobiological foundations of hypnosis begins with a review of some of the paradoxes of historical hypnosis and the impasse of current theory. It is proposed that further progress requires a deeper investigation of how psychosocial cues can modulate the mechanisms of healing at the CNS, autonomic, neuroendocrine and cellular-genetic levels. The dynamics of hypnotic communication and healing from the cognitive-behavior level to the cellular-genetic are outlined in four stages: (1) Information transduction between the experiences of consciousness and the limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary system; (2) The psychosomatic network of messenger molecules and their receptors; (3) The immediate early gene protein cascade; and (4) State dependent memory, learning and behavior. Neuroscience research is outlined for its contributions to a mathematical model of how a psychobiological approach to the therapeutic applications of hypnosis and the placebo response could facilitate neurogenesis in the human hippocampus and healing at the cellular-genetic-protein level throughout the body. A series of ten hypotheses is proposed as a guide for theory and research in therapeutic hypnosis utilizing DNA chip technology in the new millennium.
authors.affiliation: Baylor University, USA.
authors.forename: E L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Rossi
mesh_terms: D005544:Forecasting; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis; D008602:Mental Healing; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology; D009482:Neurophysiology / Q000639:trends*