Frontiers in Psychology
April 8, 2021
Heiner Stuke, Elisabeth Kress, Veith Weilnhammer et al.
41 citations
People with stronger tendencies toward hallucinations and delusions are more likely to perceive faces in visual noise and to detect invisible direct gaze, supporting the theory that psychosis involves overweighing high-level prior expectations over sensory evidence. In 39 healthy individuals varying in psychosis proneness, the tendency to see faces in noise correlated with hallucination proneness (r = 0.50) and delusion proneness (r = 0.46). The tendency to detect invisible direct gaze also correlated with hallucination proneness (r = 0.43) but not conclusively with delusion proneness. These findings suggest that overly strong priors for socially meaningful stimuli may represent an early processing alteration in psychosis.
Brain : a journal of neurology
May 13, 2025
Veith Weilnhammer, Marcus Rothkirch, Deniz Yilmaz et al.
11 citations
Perception normally balances external sensory signals with internal predictions based on prior knowledge. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over experiment with healthy participants, the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist S-ketamine shifted perception toward the external mode, favoring sensory input over prior knowledge. A case-control study found that people with paranoid schizophrenia, a condition linked to NMDAR hypofunction, also spend more time in the external mode. This NMDAR-dependent shift suggests that schizophrenia symptoms may arise from recurring disconnections between perception and prior knowledge about the world.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2024
Veith Weilnhammer
New evidence shows that applying transcranial magnetic stimulation to the parietal cortex does not alter bistable perception, challenging some theories about the neural correlates of consciousness. This finding suggests that the parietal cortex may not be directly involved in generating conscious perceptual switches, prompting a reconsideration of where and how to search for the brain mechanisms underlying conscious experience.
Current biology : CB
July 12, 2021
Veith Weilnhammer, Merve Fritsch, Meera Chikermane et al.
Inferior frontal cortex plays a causal role in resolving perceptual ambiguities, thereby determining what is consciously experienced. Computational modeling and two fMRI experiments showed that this region detects conflicts caused by ambiguous sensory information. Disrupting inferior frontal cortex activity with transcranial magnetic stimulation slowed the updating of conscious experience in response to such conflicts. These findings indicate that prefrontal cortex is not merely involved in introspection or action but actively contributes to shaping the contents of consciousness.