New views of hypnotizability.

Enrica L Santarcangelo

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00224

Abstract

New views of hypnotizability.

Highlights

Hypnotizability, or hypnotic susceptibility (Green et al, 2005), is a good predictor of the response to suggestions in and out of hypnosis (Meyer and Lynn, 2011)
Imaging studies (Hoeft et al, 2012) have associated high hypnotizability with greater functional connectivity between the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an executive-control region, and the salience network involved in detection and processing of relevant information (Figure 1). This is consistent with the evidence that highs tend to become deeply absorbed in any task of everyday life (Tellegen and Atkinson, 1974; Kihlstrom et al, 1989); the theory attributing the highs’ peculiar ability of focusing attention on selected internal or external objects as the basis of hypnotic responding (Raz, 2005; Szekely et al, 2010) has been challenged by neuropsychological and genetic studies. The former have denied any association between various attentional abilities and hypnotisability (Varga et al, 2011), have shown only higher arousal in highs (Castellani et al, 2007) and have suggested that the highs’ attention is more stable rather than more flexible than the lows’ one (Jamieson and Sheehan, 2004; Egner et al, 2005); genetic studies (Presciuttini et al, 2014) have refuted the hypothesis that reduced dopamine catabolism associated with polymorphism of the brain CatecholO-Methil-Transferase (COMT) may be responsible for the highs’ attentional abilities, as no difference between highs and lows has been found in COMT polymorphism (Szekely et al, 2010)
Theoretically, higher dopaminergic tone could be sustained in highs by other mechanisms such as different receptors density/distribution/sensitivity, dopamine production, and catabolism by the MonoAmino-Oxidase system

Summary

Introduction

Hypnotizability, or hypnotic susceptibility (Green et al, 2005), is a good predictor of the response to suggestions in and out of hypnosis (Meyer and Lynn, 2011). I have chosen the differences in postural control induced by imagined sensory alteration (Carli et al, 2006; Santarcangelo et al, 2010; Scattina et al, 2012) as the object of this article.

Results

Conclusion