Author(s)

Edoardo Casiglia^1,2*, Francesco Finatti², Federica Gasparotti², Maria Rosaria Stabile^2,3, Micaela Mitolo^3,4, Federica Albertini^2,5, Antonio M. Lapenta², Enrico Facco^2,6, Valérie Tikhonoff^2,7, Annalena Venneri^3,8

¹Studium Patavinum (Formerly Department of Medicine), University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
²Italian Centre of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Institute F. Granone, Turin, Italy.
³Department of Neuroimaging, Foundation Hospital San Camillo, Venice, Italy.
⁴Functional Magnetic Resonance Unit, S. Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Bologna, Italy.
⁵School of Emergency Medicine, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
⁶Studium Patavinum (Formerly Department of Neuroscience), University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
⁷Department of Medicine, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
⁸Royal Hallamshire Hospital, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.

Hypnosis is a condition of modified consciousness (monoideism) resulting from a mental representation able to produce psychological and physical effects. The general belief is that hypnosis is conscious and voluntary, but the practical demonstration of this hypothesis is far to be demonstrated. Twenty healthy highly hypnotizable volunteers were studied during through functional magnetic resonance imaging during a task. The task was necessary because functional magnetic resonance imaging gives no interesting results in neutral hypnosis. During the hypnotic task, the prefrontal dorso-lateral cortex, genual cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and orbital portion of the inferior frontal convolution (i.e. the Broadmann areas 9, 25, 32 and 47) were activated. Such areas are associated to egoic consciousness and voluntary processes. The results show that the hypothesis that hypnosis is conscious and voluntary is correct.

fMRI, Consciousness, Monoideism, Brodmann Areas, Hypnotic Focused Analgesia

Casiglia, E. , Finatti, F. , Gasparotti, F. , Stabile, M. , Mitolo, M. , Albertini, F. , Lapenta, A. , Facco, E. , Tikhonoff, V. and Venneri, A. (2018) Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Demonstrates That Hypnosis Is Conscious and Voluntary. Psychology, 9, 1571-1581. doi: 10.4236/psych.2018.97095.