Delusions and the role of beliefs in perceptual inference

• Published in: The Journal of neuroscience Vol. 33; no. 34; pp. 13701 - 13712
• Main Authors: Schmack, Katharina, Gòmez-Carrillo de Castro, Ana, Rothkirch, Marcus, Sekutowicz, Maria, Rössler, Hannes, Haynes, John-Dylan, Heinz, Andreas, Petrovic, Predrag, Sterzer, Philipp
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Society for Neuroscience 21-08-2013
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Brain - blood supply; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Mapping; Culture; Delusions - complications; Delusions - psychology; Eye Movements; Female; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Klinisk medicin; Linear Models; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Neurologi; Oxygen; Perceptual Disorders - complications; Perceptual Disorders - pathology; Perceptual Disorders - psychology; Photic Stimulation; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psykologi; Samhällsvetenskap; Tillämpad psykologi; Visual Pathways - blood supply; Visual Pathways - pathology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0270-6474; 1529-2401; 1529-2401
• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1778-13.2013

Delusions are unfounded yet tenacious beliefs and a symptom of psychotic disorder. Varying degrees of delusional ideation are also found in the healthy population. Here, we empirically validated a neurocognitive model that explains both the formation and the persistence of delusional beliefs in terms of altered perceptual inference. In a combined behavioral and functional neuroimaging study in healthy participants, we used ambiguous visual stimulation to probe the relationship between delusion-proneness and the effect of learned predictions on perception. Delusional ideation was associated with less perceptual stability, but a stronger belief-induced bias on perception, paralleled by enhanced functional connectivity between frontal areas that encoded beliefs and sensory areas that encoded perception. These findings suggest that weakened lower-level predictions that result in perceptual instability are implicated in the emergence of delusional beliefs. In contrast, stronger higher-level predictions that sculpt perception into conformity with beliefs might contribute to the tenacious persistence of delusional beliefs.