Title
What makes your brain suggestible? Hypnotizability is associated with differential brain activity during attention outside hypnosis.
Abstract
Theoretical models of hypnosis have emphasized the importance of attentional processes in accounting for hypnotic phenomena but their exact nature and brain substrates remain unresolved. Individuals vary in their susceptibility to hypnosis, a variability often attributed to differences in attentional functioning such as greater ability to filter irrelevant information and inhibit prepotent responses. However, behavioral studies of attentional performance outside the hypnotic state have provided conflicting results. We used fMRI to investigate the recruitment of attentional networks during a modified flanker task in High and Low hypnotizable participants. The task was performed in a normal (no hypnotized) state. While behavioral performance did not reliably differ between groups, components of the fronto-parietal executive network implicated in monitoring (anterior cingulate cortex; ACC), adjustment (lateral prefrontal cortex; latPFC), and implementation of attentional control (intraparietal sulcus; IPS) were differently activated depending on the hypnotizability of the subjects: the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) was more recruited, whereas IPS and ACC were less recruited by High susceptible individuals compared to Low. Our results demonstrate that susceptibility to hypnosis is associated with particular executive control capabilities allowing efficient attentional focusing, and point to specific neural substrates in right prefrontal cortex.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.05.076
NeuroImage
Field
DocType
Volume
Developmental psychology,Default mode network,Psychology,Cognitive psychology,Brain activity and meditation,Posterior parietal cortex,Anterior cingulate cortex,Theoretical models,Hypnosis,Intraparietal sulcus,Attentional control
Journal
117
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
1053-8119
1
0.38
References 
Authors
10
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Yann Cojan181.29
Camille Piguet221.45
P Vuilleumier343540.82