title: Paracingulate sulcus morphology is associated with hallucinations in the human brain.
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 1 cm 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.|Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.
authors.forename: Jane R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Garrison
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fernyhough
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.|Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McCarthy-Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haggard
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.|Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.
authors.forename: Jon S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Simons
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009929:Organ Size; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000473:pathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology