Deregulation of the balance between data and conceptually driven processing: A shift toward the conceptual
Anthony C. Meis a1 a1 Department of Psychiatry, Center for Cognitive Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612
Ameis@psych.uic.edu
Abstract
Behrendt & Young (B&Y) propose that a dysfunction in the reticular thalamic nucleus contributes to disinhibition of specific thalamic nuclei, allowing cortical attention mechanisms to engage thalamic relay neurons, causing underconstrained activation of the cortex and hallucinations. The following hypothesis challenges the notion of impaired sensory gating by providing the alternative view that hypofrontality reduces the power of incoming stimuli, causing internal drives to override consciousness, resulting in hallucinations.
