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Hallucinations can occur in different sensory modalities, both simultaneously and serially in time. They have typically been studied in clinical populations as phenomena occurring in a single sensory modality. Hallucinatory experiences occurring in multiple sensory systems-multimodal hallucinations (MMHs)-are more prevalent than previously thought and may have greater adverse impact than unimodal ones, but they remain relatively underresearched. Here, we review and discuss: (1) the definition and categorization of both serial and simultaneous MMHs, (2) available assessment tools and how they can be improved, and (3) the explanatory power that current hallucination theories have for MMHs. Overall, we suggest that current models need to be updated or developed to account for MMHs and to inform research into the underlying processes of such hallucinatory phenomena. We make recommendations for future research and for clinical practice, including the need for service user involvement and for better assessment tools that can reliably measure MMHs and distinguish them from other related phenomena., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.)

Recent therapeutic approaches to auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) exploit the person-like qualities of voices. Little is known, however, about how, why, and when AVH become personified. We aimed to investigate personification in individuals' early voice-hearing experiences. We invited Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service users aged 16-65 to participate in a semistructured interview on AVH phenomenology. Forty voice-hearers (M = 114.13 days in EIP) were recruited through 2 National Health Service trusts in northern England. We used content and thematic analysis to code the interviews and then statistically examined key associations with personification. Some participants had heard voices intermittently for multiple years prior to clinical involvement (M = 74.38 months), although distressing voice onset was typically more recent (median = 12 months). Participants reported a range of negative emotions (predominantly fear, 60%, 24/40, and anxiety, 62.5%, 26/40), visual hallucinations (75%, 30/40), bodily states (65%, 25/40), and "felt presences" (52.5%, 21/40) in relation to voices. Complex personification, reported by a sizeable minority (16/40, 40%), was associated with experiencing voices as conversational (odds ratio [OR] = 2.56) and companionable (OR = 3.19) but not as commanding or trauma-related. Neither age of AVH onset nor time since onset related to personification. Our findings highlight significant personification of AVH even at first clinical presentation. Personified voices appear to be distinguished less by their intrinsic properties, commanding qualities, or connection with trauma than by their affordances for conversation and companionship., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.)

Auditory-verbal hallucinations (AVH) are often associated with high levels of distress and disability in individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. In around 30% of individuals with distressing AVH and diagnosed with schizophrenia, traditional antipsychotic drugs have little or no effect. Thus, it is important to develop mechanistic models of AVH to inform new treatments. Recently a small number of studies have begun to explore the use of real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (rtfMRI-NF) for the treatment of AVH in individuals with schizophrenia. rtfMRI-NF protocols have been developed to provide feedback about brain activation in real time to enable participants to progressively achieve voluntary control over their brain activity. We offer a conceptual review of the background and general features of neurofeedback procedures before summarizing and evaluating existing mechanistic models of AVH to identify feasible neural targets for the application of rtfMRI-NF as a potential treatment. We consider methodological issues, including the choice of localizers and practicalities in logistics when setting up neurofeedback procedures in a clinical setting. We discuss clinical considerations relating to the use of rtfMRI-NF for AVH in individuals distressed by their experiences and put forward a number of questions and recommendations about best practice. Lastly, we conclude by offering suggestions for new avenues for neurofeedback methodology and mechanistic targets in relation to the research and treatment of AVH., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.)

There is a growing recognition in psychosis research of the importance of hallucinations in modalities other than the auditory. This has focused attention on cognitive and neural processes that might be shared by, and which might contribute distinctly to, hallucinations in different modalities. In this article, I address some issues around the modality-generality of cognitive and neural processes in hallucinations, including the role of perceptual and reality-monitoring systems, top-down and bottom-up processes in relation to the psychological and neural substrates of hallucinations, and the phenomenon of simultaneous multimodal hallucinations of the same entity. I suggest that a functional systems approach, inspired by some neglected aspects of the writings of A. R. Luria, can help us to understand patterns of hallucinatory experience across modalities and across clinical and non-clinical groups. Understanding the interplay between modality-general and modality-specific processes may bear fruit for improved diagnosis and therapeutic approaches to dealing with distressing hallucinations.

Negative voice-content is the best sole predictor of whether the hearer of an auditory-verbal hallucination will experience distress/impairment necessitating contact with mental health services. Yet, what causes negative voice-content and how interventions may reduce it remains poorly understood. This paper offers definitions of negative voice content and considers what may cause negative voice-content. We propose a framework in which adverse life-events may underpin much negative voice-content, a relation which may be mediated by mechanisms including hypervigilance, reduced social rank, shame and self-blame, dissociation, and altered emotional processing. At a neurological level, we note how the involvement of the amygdala and right Broca's area could drive negative voice-content. We observe that negative interactions between hearers and their voices may further drive negative voice-content. Finally, we consider the role of culture in shaping negative voice-content. This framework is intended to deepen and extend cognitive models of voice-hearing and spur further development of psychological interventions for those distressed by such voices. We note that much of the relevant research in this area remains to be performed or replicated. We conclude that more attention needs to be paid to methods for reducing negative voice-content, and urge further research in this important area., (Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Hallucinations constitute one of the 5 symptom domains of psychotic disorders in DSM-5, suggesting diagnostic significance for that group of disorders. Although specific featural properties of hallucinations (negative voices, talking in the third person, and location in external space) are no longer highlighted in DSM, there is likely a residual assumption that hallucinations in schizophrenia can be identified based on these candidate features. We investigated whether certain featural properties of hallucinations are specifically indicative of schizophrenia by conducting a systematic review of studies showing direct comparisons of the featural and clinical characteristics of (auditory and visual) hallucinations among 2 or more population groups (one of which included schizophrenia). A total of 43 articles were reviewed, which included hallucinations in 4 major groups (nonclinical groups, drug- and alcohol-related conditions, medical and neurological conditions, and psychiatric disorders). The results showed that no single hallucination feature or characteristic uniquely indicated a diagnosis of schizophrenia, with the sole exception of an age of onset in late adolescence. Among the 21 features of hallucinations in schizophrenia considered here, 95% were shared with other psychiatric disorders, 85% with medical/neurological conditions, 66% with drugs and alcohol conditions, and 52% with the nonclinical groups. Additional differences rendered the nonclinical groups somewhat distinctive from clinical disorders. Overall, when considering hallucinations, it is inadvisable to give weight to the presence of any featural properties alone in making a schizophrenia diagnosis. It is more important to focus instead on the co-occurrence of other symptoms and the value of hallucinations as an indicator of vulnerability., (© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.)

Eighty patients and thirty controls were interviewed using one interview that promoted personal disclosure and another about everyday topics. Speech was scored using the Thought, Language and Communication scale (TLC). All participants completed the Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS) and the Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire (VISQ). Patients scored lower than comparisons on the SCCS. Low scores were associated the disorganized dimension of TD. Patients also scored significantly higher on condensed and other people in inner speech, but not on dialogical or evaluative inner speech. The poverty of speech dimension of TD was associated with less dialogical inner speech, other people in inner speech, and less evaluative inner speech. Hallucinations were significantly associated with more other people in inner speech and evaluative inner speech. Clarity of self-concept and qualities of inner speech are differentially associated with dimensions of TD. The findings also support inner speech models of hallucinations.

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the potential for alterations to the brain's resting-state networks (RSNs) to explain various kinds of psychopathology. RSNs provide an intriguing new explanatory framework for hallucinations, which can occur in different modalities and population groups, but which remain poorly understood. This collaboration from the International Consortium on Hallucination Research (ICHR) reports on the evidence linking resting-state alterations to auditory hallucinations (AH) and provides a critical appraisal of the methodological approaches used in this area. In the report, we describe findings from resting connectivity fMRI in AH (in schizophrenia and nonclinical individuals) and compare them with findings from neurophysiological research, structural MRI, and research on visual hallucinations (VH). In AH, various studies show resting connectivity differences in left-hemisphere auditory and language regions, as well as atypical interaction of the default mode network and RSNs linked to cognitive control and salience. As the latter are also evident in studies of VH, this points to a domain-general mechanism for hallucinations alongside modality-specific changes to RSNs in different sensory regions. However, we also observed high methodological heterogeneity in the current literature, affecting the ability to make clear comparisons between studies. To address this, we provide some methodological recommendations and options for future research on the resting state and hallucinations., (© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.)

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.

Typically reported as vivid, multisensory experiences which may spontaneously resolve, hallucinations are present at high rates during childhood. The risk of associated psychopathology is a major cause of concern. On the one hand, the risk of developing further delusional ideation has been shown to be reduced by better theory of mind skills. On the other hand, ideas of reference, passivity phenomena, and misidentification syndrome have been shown to increase the risk of self-injury or heteroaggressive behaviors. Cognitive psychology and brain-imaging studies have advanced our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying these early-onset hallucinations. Notably, specific functional impairments have been associated with certain phenomenological characteristics of hallucinations in youths, including intrusiveness and the sense of reality. In this review, we provide an update of associated epidemiological and phenomenological factors (including sociocultural context, social adversity, and genetics, considered in relation to the psychosis continuum hypothesis), cognitive models, and neurophysiological findings concerning hallucinations in children and adolescents. Key issues that have interfered with progress are considered and recommendations for future studies are provided., (© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.)

Deficits in emotional processing have been widely described in schizophrenia. Associations of positive symptoms with poor emotional prosody comprehension (EPC) have been reported at the phenomenological, behavioral, and neural levels. This review focuses on the relation between emotional processing deficits and auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). We explore the possibility that the relation between AVH and EPC in schizophrenia might be mediated by the disruption of a common mechanism intrinsic to auditory processing, and that, moreover, prosodic feature processing deficits play a pivotal role in the formation of AVH. The review concludes with proposing a mechanism by which AVH are constituted and showing how different aspects of our neuropsychological model can explain the constellation of subjective experiences which occur in relation to AVH., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

While the majority of cognitive studies on auditory hallucinations (AHs) have been conducted in schizophrenia (SZ), an increasing number of researchers are turning their attention to different clinical and nonclinical populations, often using SZ findings as a model for research. Recent advances derived from SZ studies can therefore be utilized to make substantial progress on AH research in other groups. The objectives of this article were to (1) present an up-to-date review regarding the cognitive mechanisms of AHs in SZ, (2) review findings from cognitive research conducted in other clinical and nonclinical groups, and (3) integrate these recent findings into a cohesive framework. First, SZ studies show that the cognitive underpinnings of AHs include self-source-monitoring deficits and executive and inhibitory control dysfunctions as well as distortions in top-down mechanisms, perceptual and linguistic processes, and emotional factors. Second, consistent with SZ studies, findings in other population groups point to the role of top-down processing, abnormalities in executive inhibition, and negative emotions. Finally, we put forward an integrated model of AHs that incorporates the above findings. We suggest that AHs arise from an interaction between abnormal neural activation patterns that produce salient auditory signals and top-down mechanisms that include signal detection errors, executive and inhibition deficits, a tapestry of expectations and memories, and state characteristics that influence how these experiences are interpreted. Emotional factors play a particular prominent role at all levels of this hierarchy. Our model is distinctively powerful in explaining a range of phenomenological characteristics of AH across a spectrum of disorders.

Despite a growing interest in auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in different clinical and nonclinical groups, the phenomenological characteristics of such experiences have not yet been reviewed and contrasted, limiting our understanding of these phenomena on multiple empirical, theoretical, and clinical levels. We look at some of the most prominent descriptive features of AVHs in schizophrenia (SZ). These are then examined in clinical conditions including substance abuse, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, dementia, late-onset SZ, mood disorders, borderline personality disorder, hearing impairment, and dissociative disorders. The phenomenological changes linked to AVHs in prepsychotic stages are also outlined, together with a review of AVHs in healthy persons. A discussion of key issues and future research directions concludes the review.

It has become widely accepted that the psychotic disorders are endpoints of atypical developmental trajectories indexed by abnormal emotional and cognitive development early in life. However, the role of environmental factors in determining these trajectories has received relatively little attention. In this article, we argue that (1) the influence of environment on psychosis can best be understood if we focus on specific types of psychotic experiences such as hallucinations and delusions, (2) these symptoms are the products of specific cognitive biases and deficits, and (3) the development of these particular patterns of cognitive functioning is influenced by specific kinds of environmental adversity. This approach is at variance with more conventional approaches because it suggests that each type of experience, rather than being the manifestation of a common underlying illness process, is a product of a specific set of causal variables. Importantly, these variables include environmental determinants, although not to the exclusion of endogenous factors such as neurodevelopmental impairment or genetic vulnerability. We discuss the implications of this approach for neurobiological and genetic research into psychosis, as well as clinical practice.

The neural diathesis-stress model of schizophrenia proposes that stress, through its effects on cortisol production, acts upon a preexisting vulnerability to trigger and/or worsen the symptoms of schizophrenia. In line with its focus on the neurobiology of stress response in schizophrenia, this model treats stressors as a homogeneous category. Recent research has shown that, in healthy individuals, cortisol is most strongly produced in response to stressors that result from perceived uncontrollable threats to important goals and/or social-evaluative threats. We hypothesize that it is specifically these stressors that trigger and/or worsen the symptoms of schizophrenia in those with a preexisting vulnerability. This hypothesis may provide a way of making sense of contradictory findings on the relations between stress and schizophrenia. We propose some empirical tests of this hypothesis and explore implications for the treatment and management of the disorder.

People rapidly make first impressions of others, often based on very little information–minimal exposure to faces or voices is sufficient for humans to make up their mind about personality of others. While there has been considerable research on voice personality perception, much less is known about its relevance to hallucination-proneness, despite auditory hallucinations being frequently perceived as personified social agents. The present paper reports two studies investigating the relation between voice personality perception and hallucination-proneness in non-clinical samples. A voice personality perception task was created, in which participants rated short voice recordings on four personality characteristics, relating to dimensions of the voice’s perceived Valence and Dominance. Hierarchical regression was used to assess contributions of Valence and Dominance voice personality ratings to hallucination-proneness scores, controlling for paranoia-proneness and vividness of mental imagery. Results from Study 1 suggested that high ratings of voices as dominant might be related to high hallucination-proneness; however, this relation seemed to be dependent on reported levels of paranoid thinking. In Study 2, we show that hallucination-proneness was associated with high ratings of voice dominance, and this was independent of paranoia and imagery abilities scores, both of which were found to be significant predictors of hallucination-proneness. Results from Study 2 suggest an interaction between gender of participants and the gender of the voice actor, where only ratings of own gender voices on Dominance characteristics are related to hallucination-proneness scores. These results are important for understanding the perception of characterful features of voices and its significance for psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Auditory verbal hallucinations (hearing voices) are typically associated with psychosis, but a minority of the general population also experience them frequently and without distress. Such 'non-clinical' experiences offer a rare and unique opportunity to study hallucinations apart from confounding clinical factors, thus allowing for the identification of symptom-specific mechanisms. Recent theories propose that hallucinations result from an imbalance of prior expectation and sensory information, but whether such an imbalance also influences auditory-perceptual processes remains unknown. We examine for the first time the cortical processing of ambiguous speech in people without psychosis who regularly hear voices. Twelve non-clinical voice-hearers and 17 matched controls completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan while passively listening to degraded speech ('sine-wave' speech), that was either potentially intelligible or unintelligible. Voice-hearers reported recognizing the presence of speech in the stimuli before controls, and before being explicitly informed of its intelligibility. Across both groups, intelligible sine-wave speech engaged a typical left-lateralized speech processing network. Notably, however, voice-hearers showed stronger intelligibility responses than controls in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and in the superior frontal gyrus. This suggests an enhanced involvement of attention and sensorimotor processes, selectively when speech was potentially intelligible. Altogether, these behavioural and neural findings indicate that people with hallucinatory experiences show distinct responses to meaningful auditory stimuli. A greater weighting towards prior knowledge and expectation might cause non-veridical auditory sensations in these individuals, but it might also spontaneously facilitate perceptual processing where such knowledge is required. This has implications for the understanding of hallucinations in clinical and non-clinical populations, and is consistent with current 'predictive processing' theories of psychosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for voice-hearing (i.e., auditory verbal hallucinations; AVH) has, at best, small to moderate effects. One possible reason for this limited efficacy is that current CBT approaches tend to conceptualize voice-hearing as a homogenous experience in terms of the cognitive processes involved in AVH. However, the highly heterogeneous nature of voice-hearing suggests that many different cognitive processes may be involved in the etiology of AVH. These heterogeneous voice-hearing experiences do, however, appear to cluster into a set of subtypes, opening up the possibility of tailoring treatment to the subtype of AVH that a voice-hearer reports. In this paper, we (a) outline our rationale for tailoring CBT to subtypes of voice-hearing, (b) describe CBT for three putative subtypes of AVH (inner speech-based AVH, memory-based AVH, and hypervigilance AVH), and (c) discuss potential limitations and problems with such an approach. We conclude by arguing that tailoring CBT to subtypes of voice-hearing could prove to be a valuable therapeutic development, which may be especially effective when used in early intervention in psychosis services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The causes of Emanuel Swedenborg's (1688-1772) voices and visions remain unclear. It has recently been argued that post-hoc diagnoses of schizophrenia and epilepsy are not congruent with Swedenborg's actual experiences. In this article we examine the phenomenological commonalities between Swedenborg's experiences and near-death experiences (NDEs). Using the Near-Death Experience Scale (Greyson, 1985), we show that Swedenborg's experiences meet accepted criteria to be classified as NDEs. However, despite significant evidence for such commonalities, Swedenborg's experiences also show a number of points of divergence from NDEs. After reviewing the evidence for a potential role of hypoxia in generating NDEs, we hypothesize that a proximal cause of Swedenborg's experiences was his tendency to hypoventilate. Further, we argue that a distal cause of Swedenborg's experiences was neural changes induced by his lifetime of unusual respiration, in conjunction with a predisposition to temporal lobe seizures. We conclude by proposing a number of empirically testable hypotheses emerging from our arguments, centered around a developmental approach to NDEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although rumination has been proposed to play an important role in the creation of hallucinations, direct empirical tests of this proposal have not yet been performed. Employing a distinction between ruminative and reflective self-consciousness, we set out to test a new model of the relations among rumination, reflection, intrusive thoughts, thought suppression, social anxiety, and hallucination-proneness. This model proposed that rumination would be related to hallucination-proneness through the mediating variable of intrusive thoughts, but that reflection would not be related to hallucination-proneness. The model was tested in a student population (N =296) using path analyses. A modified version of the model was found to be a good fit to the data, once a direct path from reflection to hallucination-proneness had been added. As hypothesized, rumination was related to hallucination-proneness only indirectly, through the mediating variable of intrusive thoughts. Implications for interventions and future directions for research are considered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The voices and visions experienced by Emanuel Swedenborg remain a topic of much debate. The present article offers a reconsideration of these experiences in relation to changes in psychiatric practice. First, the phenomenology of Swedenborg's experiences is reviewed through an examination of his writings. The varying conceptualizations of these experiences by Swedenborg and his contemporaries, and by psychiatrists of later generations, are examined. We show how attempts by 19th- and 20th-century psychiatrists to explain Swedenborg's condition as the result of either schizophrenia or epilepsy are unable to account for his experiences. We then demonstrate that the re-emergence of the 19th-century concept of 'hallucinations in the sane' offers an alternative way to understand Swedenborg's experiences outside typical discourses of mental illness. Finally we argue that Swedenborg's experiences should be understood as exemplifying phenomena which we term 'hallucinations without mental disorder', and investigate how conceiving of Swedenborg in this way can inform future research into the experience and clinical significance of hallucinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Possessing either an external locus of control (LOC) or low self-esteem (SE) has been demonstrated prospectively to predict schizophrenia onset. This may be due to the consequences of these qualities for stress perception and resultant cortisol release. However, research with non-clinical samples has shown that only individuals with a combination of low SE and an external LOC show a significant cortisol response in response to a stressor. The current study hypothesized that low SE and an external LOC would be associated with greater proneness to hallucination-like experiences and delusion-like beliefs in a non-clinical sample (N =493) than any other combination of these variables. A multiple linear regression found that the interaction between SE and LOC was not a significant predictor of either hallucination-like experiences or delusion-like beliefs. In line with previous research, LOC was found to be a significant, albeit weak, predictor of hallucination-like experiences and delusion-like beliefs. Implications for future research are examined, in addition to possible interventions in prodromal psychosis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Passivity experiences in schizophrenia are thought to be due to a failure in a neurocognitive action self-monitoring system (NASS). Drawing on the assumption that inner speech is a form of action, a recent model of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) has proposed that AVHs can be explained by a failure in the NASS. In this article, we offer an alternative application of the NASS to AVHs, with separate mechanisms creating the emotion of self-as-agent and other-as-agent. We defend the assumption that inner speech can be considered as a form of action, and show how a number of previous criticisms of applying the NASS to AVHs can be refuted. This is achieved in part through taking a Vygotskian developmental perspective on inner speech. It is suggested that more research into the nature and development of inner speech is needed to further our understanding of AVHs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In diathesis–stress models of psychosis, cortisol released in response to stressors is proposed to play a role in the development of psychotic experiences. Individual differences in cortisol response to stressors are therefore likely to play a role in proneness to psychotic experiences. As caffeine has been found to increase cortisol response to a given stressor, we proposed that, when levels of stress were controlled for, caffeine intake would be related to hallucination-proneness and persecutory ideation. Caffeine intake, stress, hallucination-proneness and persecutory ideation were assessed by self-report questionnaires in a non-clinical sample (N =219). Caffeine intake was positively related to stress levels and hallucination-proneness, but not persecutory ideation. When stress levels were controlled for, caffeine intake predicted levels of hallucination-proneness but not persecutory ideation. Implications of these findings are discussed and avenues for future research suggested. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An essay about auditory verbal hallucinations or voice-hearing associated with schizophrenia is presented. Topics discussed include information on the project Hearing the Voice, which is aimed at understanding a glitch in the brain, and the Hearing Voices Movement, which refers to a community of voice-hearers who reject purely biomedical interpretations of their experiences.

Resting state networks (RSNs) are thought to reflect the intrinsic functional connectivity of brain regions. Alterations to RSNs have been proposed to underpin various kinds of psychopathology, including the occurrence of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). This review outlines the main hypotheses linking AVH and the resting state, and assesses the evidence for alterations to intrinsic connectivity provided by studies of resting fMRI in AVH. The influence of hallucinations during data acquisition, medication confounds, and movement are also considered. Despite a large variety of analytic methods and designs being deployed, it is possible to conclude that resting connectivity in the left temporal lobe in general and left superior temporal gyrus in particular are disrupted in AVH. There is also preliminary evidence of atypical connectivity in the default mode network and its interaction with other RSNs. Recommendations for future research include the adoption of a common analysis protocol to allow for more overlapping datasets and replication of intrinsic functional connectivity alterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Attachment has been proposed to relate to adult psychopathology, although strong evidence for this relation has not been documented. This study investigated peer attachment and parental bonding in relation to schizotypy in healthy adults (N =154). Paranoia was the only positive schizotypal sign found to relate to peer attachment, being predicted by attachment anxiety, but not avoidance. Negative schizotypal signs were predicted by levels of both attachment anxiety and avoidance. In addition, paranoia and negative schizotypal traits were predicted by perceived parental care. Implications for theories of schizotypy and future research are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]