Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry

Objectives：Cognitive psychological models propose that auditory hallucinations arise from a problem with monitoring one's auditory verbal imagery. Most auditory hallucinations are derogatory in content and accompany negative emotions. If auditory verbal imagery plays an critical role in the pathogenesis of auditory hallucination, it must be influenced by negative emotions. This study was aimed at understanding the influence of negative emotions on the development of hallucinations by investigating the way by which negative emotions have influence on cortical activity induced by auditory verbal imagery.

Methods：For both normal subjects and patients with schizophrenia, quantitative electroencephalography(Q-EEG) was applied during the auditory verbal imagery tasks using a two word list. The one word list accompanied negative emotion and the other accompanied neutral emotions. The difference of EEG activity between two tasks was compared by paired t-test. We also compare the difference of the influence of negative emotions between normal subjects and patients with schizophrenia

Results：In normal subjects, amplitude of beta wave was increased in temporal area such as TCP1, and, the amplitude of theta frequency wave was decreased in right hemisphere such as FP2, F4, C4, CP2, P4. But, in the schizophrenia group, there were no significant differences.

Conclusion：These results may suggest that auditory verbal imagery with negative emotion requires more activation in left temporal area, but, appropriate activation may not achieved in schizophrenia patients. So, the possibility that the resultant disturbance of verbal self monitoring may be related to auditory hallucination is suggested in this study.