Differences in regional cerebral blood flow during musical and verbal hallucinations

Abstract

A 51-year-old male patient suffered from both musical and verbal hallucinations with insight. We performed three single photon emission computed tomographic scans with the patient in different conditions: baseline without hallucinations, musical hallucinations, and verbal hallucinations. Clearly, different patterns of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) were observed during musical and verbal hallucinations. The findings suggest that musical and verbal hallucinations are associated with different patterns of rCBF, possibly reflecting the different causes of the two types of hallucinations.