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Although language-related brain areas are activated during auditory hallucinations, nothing is known about what events in the brain give rise to these experiences. To learn more, researchers studied 24 patients with chronic schizophrenia and medication-resistant hallucinations during and just before auditory hallucinations. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), subjects signaled the onset and ending of auditory hallucinations by squeezing hand-held balloons. Motion and other artifacts were controlled for through analysis of brain activations in 15 healthy controls who intermittently and randomly squeezed balloons.
During auditory hallucinations, fMRI showed activation in bilateral insula and inferior frontal gyri, including Br…