TY - JOUR TI - Sensory dynamics of visual hallucinations in the normal population AU - Pearson, Joel AU - Chiou, Rocco AU - Rogers, Sebastian AU - Wicken, Marcus AU - Heitmann, Stewart AU - Ermentrout, Bard A2 - Pasternak, Tatiana VL - 5 PY - 2016 DA - 2016/10/11 SP - e17072 C1 - eLife 2016;5:e17072 DO - 10.7554/eLife.17072 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17072 AB - Hallucinations occur in both normal and clinical populations. Due to their unpredictability and complexity, the mechanisms underlying hallucinations remain largely untested. Here we show that visual hallucinations can be induced in the normal population by visual flicker, limited to an annulus that constricts content complexity to simple moving grey blobs, allowing objective mechanistic investigation. Hallucination strength peaked at ~11 Hz flicker and was dependent on cortical processing. Hallucinated motion speed increased with flicker rate, when mapped onto visual cortex it was independent of eccentricity, underwent local sensory adaptation and showed the same bistable and mnemonic dynamics as sensory perception. A neural field model with motion selectivity provides a mechanism for both hallucinations and perception. Our results demonstrate that hallucinations can be studied objectively, and they share multiple mechanisms with sensory perception. We anticipate that this assay will be critical to test theories of human consciousness and clinical models of hallucination. KW - hallucinations KW - neural field model KW - bistability KW - illusion KW - flicker KW - binocular rivalry JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -