Neural correlates of psychotic-like experiences during spiritual-trance state

Recent studies indicate high levels of psychotic experiences in the general population. Here, we report a functional imaging study with 8 mentally healthy spiritual mediums and 8 matched controls. The mediums entered a mediumistic-trance state using a standardized manner by closing their eyes and actively seeking to ignore external and internal stimuli to achieve a ‘state of emptiness’; in a control condition, they were instructed to re-enact the same mediumistic experience that they had during the mediumistic-trance condition but in a non-trance state (imaginative-trance).

Source: Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging - June 14, 2017 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Alessandra Ghinato Mainieri, Julio Fernando Prieto Peres, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Klaus Mathiak, Ute Habel, Nils Kohn Source Type: research