Overview
- Researchers asked participants to imagine saying “bah” or “bih” while EEG recorded brain activity as they simultaneously heard one of those syllables.
- The study enrolled 142 people across three groups: 55 with recent auditory verbal hallucinations, 44 with schizophrenia without recent hallucinations, and 43 healthy controls.
- Healthy participants showed the expected suppression in auditory cortex when imagined and heard sounds matched, whereas those currently hearing voices showed enhanced activity.
- Participants with schizophrenia who were not hallucinating displayed an intermediate pattern, suggesting a gradation aligned with symptom status.
- The UNSW-led findings, published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, support a long-standing inner-speech misattribution theory and highlight a potential EEG biomarker that remains preliminary due to medication effects, correlational design, and the need for replication and longitudinal testing.