Marcelle Bartolo Abela⁽¹⁾

	[Neuroscience]	[Physiology]

INTRODUCTION

Investigators have tried defining hypnosis since the last century, resulting in the postulation of numerous theories, some aspects of which have been supported and replicated, while others have been found to be totally incorrect, if not actually outrageously far-fetched. The main difficulty in defining hypnosis has always been its intangibility as a state, the measuring of which was hampered by the very limited noninvasive techniques available at the time. However, the relatively recent advent of EEG, CT, PET, and MRI, additionally to intracranial electrophysiological studies during surgery, has permitted the undertaking of the effective but concomitantly ethical study of hypnosis. This has provided a substantial amount of physiological evidence in support of hypnosis as a distinct state in its own right, with specific and opposite neurophysiological characteristics according to high or low hypnotizability, concurrently with a greater than normal ability to access and experience affect, the degree of such ability also being variable according to hypnotizability.

Discussion Board

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[ABSTRACT] [INTRODUCTION] [HISTORY] [CURRENT THEORIES AND EVIDENCE] [TABLES] [DISCUSSION] [CONCLUSIONS] [ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS] [REFERENCES] [Discussion Board]

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	[Neuroscience]	[Physiology]

Marcelle Bartolo Abela
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Last update: 10/01/00