Pain Response in Depersonalization: A Functional Imaging Study Using Hypnosis in Healthy Subjects

Abstract

Background: Depersonalization (DP) is characterized by persistent or recurrent episodes of detachment from one’s self with reduced pain perception being a common feature. Alterations in the body schema similar to the cortico-limbic disconnection syndrome of pain asymbolia are suggested to be responsible for DP. In this study we used hypnosis to induce DP in healthy subjects and to examine neural patterns of pain perception in the state of DP by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods: Pain perception was investigated in 7 healthy subjects with high susceptibility to hypnosis in three different mental states: waking state (N-W), hypnotic relaxation (H-R) and hypnotic DP (H-DP). Pain was induced with electrical stimulation to the median nerve at the right wrist. fMRI measurements were performed during all states. Results: Nociceptive stimuli led to an activation of the well described pain network including somatosensory and insular regions and the cerebellum. Activation was markedly reduced in the contralateral somatosensory cortex, parietal cortex (Brodmann area 40, BA40), prefrontal cortex (BA9), putamen and the ipsilateral amygdala during H-DP. Subjects also reported a significant decrease in pain intensity from N-W to H-DP. Conclusion: Pain response during H-DP was reduced in sensory and affective pain-related areas, reflecting the diminished intensity of the perceived pain. Moreover, a network of cortical and subcortical areas that have been implicated in the perception of the own body was less responsive during DP, which might point to a specific neural mechanism underlying the ‘out-of-body’ experience. Although the small number of subjects does not allow a generalization of our findings, H-DP seems to be a promising tool for the investigation of psychological and biological mechanisms of self-inflicted injuries as well as the mind-body interplay within the realm of psychosomatic disorders.

Pain sensitivity and neural processing during dissociative states in patients with borderline personality disorder with and without comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder: a pilot study

“…31,32 Röeder and colleagues 33 found reduced amygdala activity during induced depersonalization in healthy control participants. Taken together, these findings suggest that reduced temporal activity is a potential correlate of dissociation and reduced pain sensitivity.…”

How psychotherapy changes the brain – the contribution of functional neuroimaging

“…60 Similar results were obtained during hypnosis-induced depersonalisation. 61 These studies revealed the neural correlates of different aspects of hypnotic analgesia. They showed ACC or somatosensory cortex to be suppressed, depending on the content of the hypnotic suggestions.…”

Hypnosis and top-down regulation of consciousness

“…Hypnosis can be used to reliably produce hallucinations in some highly suggestible individuals (Woody & Szechtman, 2011), thereby providing opportunities to study a phenomenon that is normally intractable within laboratory contexts (see also §5.2). In particular, researchers have used suggestion to induce auditory and visual hallucinations (Kosslyn, Thompson, Costantini-Ferrando, Alpert, & Spiegel, 2000;McGeown et al, 2012;Szechtman, Woody, Bowers, & Nahmias, 1998), as well as more complicated multimodal hallucinations (Nash, Lynn, & Stanley, 1984;Röder, Michal, Overbeck, van de Ven, & Linden, 2007). For example, one study found that suggestions for autoscopy (a visual hallucination of one's own body) coupled with a suggestion for disembodiment (the perception of being physically detached from one's body) was associated with reduced activation in right temporal parietal junction and medial prefrontal cortex relative to a control condition (Röder et al, 2007).…”

“…In particular, researchers have used suggestion to induce auditory and visual hallucinations (Kosslyn, Thompson, Costantini-Ferrando, Alpert, & Spiegel, 2000;McGeown et al, 2012;Szechtman, Woody, Bowers, & Nahmias, 1998), as well as more complicated multimodal hallucinations (Nash, Lynn, & Stanley, 1984;Röder, Michal, Overbeck, van de Ven, & Linden, 2007). For example, one study found that suggestions for autoscopy (a visual hallucination of one's own body) coupled with a suggestion for disembodiment (the perception of being physically detached from one's body) was associated with reduced activation in right temporal parietal junction and medial prefrontal cortex relative to a control condition (Röder et al, 2007). This is notable because previous research has shown that direct electrical stimulation of right temporal parietal junction in an epilepsy patient reliably produced out-of-body experiences (Blanke, Ortigue, Landis, & Seeck, 2002); the latter result provides indirect corroboration of the neurophysiological effects of specific suggestions.…”