In France, nearly 600,000 people are affected by schizophrenia. This disease has a very wide range of symptoms such as visual hallucinations or phases of delirium. However the best known, and affecting 70% of people with schizophrenia, is auditory verbal hallucination or AVH. Researchers have carried out experiments to target and treat the area of the brain that would be involved in these hallucinations. The results are presented today at the ECPN congress (European College of Neuropsychopharmacology) in Paris.
Encouraging results
The scientists worked with 59 patients affected by this disease. 26 were subjected to electromagnetic pulses of 20 Hertz in a specific area of the brain: the temporal lobe associated with language. The other 33 received a placebo treatment. After two weeks of therapy, 34.6% of patients who received treatment saw their AVH decrease by a third, compared to only 9.1% for those who received a placebo.
This shows with certainty that this area is indeed associated with auditory hallucinations. However, these are the first studies conducted on this subject and there is still a long way to go before we can open this treatment to the 21 million people worldwide affected by schizophrenia.
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