Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • Momentary dynamics of inner speech varieties, auditory verbal hallucinations, and affect in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: an experience sampling study

  • Lawrence Kin-hei Chung, Thomas J. Whitford, Anson Kai Chun Chau, Sandra Sau-man Chan, George Heung-chuen Chong, Suzanne Ho-wai So
  • Journal:
    Psychological Medicine / Volume 56 / 2026
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    12 January 2026, e13
    • Article
      • You have access
      • Open access
    • PDF
    • HTML
    • Export citation
  • Background

    Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) may arise from misattributed inner speech. However, it is unclear if inner speech frequency and phenomenology differ in schizophrenia-spectrum voice-hearers compared with healthy individuals, and how different inner speech varieties relate to AVH and affect. Using experience sampling methodology (ESM), this study examined the moment-to-moment dynamics between inner speech varieties, AVH, and affect.

    Methods

    Participants completed 6 days of ESM on an electronic device, responding to 10 daily prompts on inner speech varieties (i.e. dialogic, evaluative, other people, condensed, and positive), AVH, and affect. Responses from 32 individuals with SSDs with current AVH (‘SSD’) and 34 healthy controls (‘HC’) were analyzed using linear mixed modeling.

    Results

    SSD reported significantly more inner speech moments and higher momentary intensity of evaluative, other people, condensed, and positive inner speech compared with HC, but not for dialogic inner speech. Within SSD, higher momentary intensities of dialogic, evaluative, other people, and condensed inner speech were associated with higher AVH levels. Momentary negative affect (NA) moderated the association between evaluative inner speech and AVH, with a stronger association at higher NA levels.

    Conclusions

    SSDs with current AVH experience more frequent inner speech and exhibit a distinct phenomenological profile compared with healthy individuals. Several inner speech varieties are associated with AVH severity momentarily, supporting the hypothesis that inner speech contributes to AVH at the phenomenological level. This study highlights the emotional state as an important moderator of the inner speech–AVH relationship and as a potential therapeutic target.

  • 1 - Structural imaging of schizophrenia

  • from Section I - Schizophrenia
    • By Thomas J. Whitford, Department of Psychiatry Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard School of Medicine Boston, MA, USA and Department of Psychiatry Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia, Marek Kubicki, Department of Psychiatry VA Boston Healthcare System and Department of Psychiatry Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School Boston, MA, USA, Martha E. Shenton, VA Boston Healthcare System and Department of Psychiatry Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School Boston, MA, USA
  • Edited by Martha E. Shenton, Bruce I. Turetsky, University of Pennsylvania
  • Book:
    Understanding Neuropsychiatric Disorders
    Published online:
    10 January 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010, pp 1-29

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Emil Kraepelin, one of the founding fathers of the diagnostic concept of schizophrenia, argued that the disorder was underpinned by abnormalities in brain structure. In his 1899 textbook, Kraepelin wrote: “in dementia praecox [schizophrenia], partial damage to, or destruction of, cells of the cerebral cortex must probably occur” (Kraepelin,1907). Since that time, an enormous amount of research has been undertaken with an eye to determining whether or not Kraepelin was correct. Until recently, the question of whether patients with schizophrenia (SZ) exhibit abnormalities in brain structure was more or less synonymous with the question of whether they exhibit abnormalities in gray matter (GM). The GM, so-called because of its grayish appearance in post-mortem tissue sections, is thought to consist primarily of neuron bodies, dendrites, axon terminals and other synaptic infrastructure and certain classes of neuroglia. Until recently, the vast majority of research aimed at investigating the neuroanatomical underpinnings of SZ has focused on GM. This is perhaps understandable, given that GM comprises both the brain's fundamental units of information processing (neurons) and the sites-of-action for most psychotropic medications (synapses). In recent years, however, a growing proportion of contemporary research has begun to focus on the “other half of the brain” (as wryly denoted by Fields, 2004), i.e. the white matter. The white matter (WM) is primarily constituted of myelinated axon sheaths, which form the infrastructure for signal transmission between spatially discrete populations of neurons.