Can You Hear Yourself Think?

Most schizophrenia patients hear voices, but researchers have not clarified the neurobiology behind the hearing of voices that are not one's own, saying things that one does not consciously think. These researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the contributory role of hyperactive connections between regions involved in processing speech.

Participants were 32 patients with schizophrenia accompanied by auditory hallucinations of voices at least once a day for the past month (11 with hallucinations every 3 minutes or less), 24 schizophrenia patients who had not heard voices for at least the past 5 years, and 23 healthy controls. All patients were neurologically intact, and all but 3 patients were taking antipsychoti…