Hypnotic suggestion and cognitive neuroscience.

The growing acceptance of consciousness as a legitimate field of enquiry and the availability of functional imaging has rekindled research interest in the use of hypnosis and suggestion to manipulate subjective experience and to gain insights into healthy and pathological cognitive functioning. Current research forms two strands. The first comprises studies exploring the cognitive and neural nature of hypnosis itself. The second employs hypnosis to explore known psychological processes using specifically targeted suggestions. An extension of this second approach involves using hypnotic suggestion to create clinically informed analogues of established structural and functional neuropsychological disorders. With functional imaging, this type of experimental neuropsychopathology offers a productive means of investigating brain activity involved in many symptom-based disorders and their related phenomenology.

Trends Cogn Sci. 2009 Jun;13(6):264-70. Epub 2009 May 8. Oakley DA, Halligan PW. Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK; School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Tower Building, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, UK.