Real-time fMRI neurofeedback modulates induced hallucinations and underlying brain mechanisms

• Published in: Communications biology Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 1120 - 15
• Main Authors: Dhanis, Herberto, Gninenko, Nicolas, Morgenroth, Elenor, Potheegadoo, Jevita, Rognini, Giulio, Faivre, Nathan, Blanke, Olaf, Van De Ville, Dimitri
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11-09-2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/378/2649/1398; 692/308/575; 692/699/476/1761; Adult; Antipsychotics; Biofeedback; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiopathology; Brain mapping; Brain Mapping - methods; Cognitive science; Electroencephalography; Feedback; Female; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Hallucinations; Hallucinations - diagnostic imaging; Hallucinations - physiopathology; Hallucinations - therapy; Humans; Life Sciences; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Medical treatment; Mental disorders; Neurodegenerative diseases; Neurofeedback - methods; Psychotropic drugs; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - diagnostic imaging; Schizophrenia - physiopathology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 2399-3642; 2399-3642
• DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-06842-x

Hallucinations can occur in the healthy population, are clinically relevant and frequent symptoms in many neuropsychiatric conditions, and have been shown to mark disease progression in patients with neurodegenerative disorders where antipsychotic treatment remains challenging. Here, we combine MR-robotics capable of inducing a clinically-relevant hallucination, with real-time fMRI neurofeedback (fMRI-NF) to train healthy individuals to up-regulate a fronto-parietal brain network associated with the robotically-induced hallucination. Over three days, participants learned to modulate occurrences of and transition probabilities to this network, leading to heightened sensitivity to induced hallucinations after training. Moreover, participants who became sensitive and succeeded in fMRI-NF training, showed sustained and specific neural changes after training, characterized by increased hallucination network occurrences during induction and decreased hallucination network occurrences during a matched control condition. These data demonstrate that fMRI-NF modulates specific hallucination network dynamics and highlights the potential of fMRI-NF as a novel antipsychotic treatment in neurodegenerative disorders and schizophrenia.
fMRI-neurofeedback targeting a hallucination-related whole-brain network allows individuals to willfully control its temporal properties and modify proneness the hallucination induction, showing promise for investigating future therapies in disease.