Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Cortex. 2019 Feb;111:87-99. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.10.019. Epub 2018 Nov 3.
It has been suggested that individual differences in cortical excitability leading to disruption of the timing and integration of sensory information processing may explain why some people have out of body experiences (OBE) in the absence of any known pathological or psychiatric condition. Here we recorded EEG from people who either had, or had not experienced an OBE in order to investigate the neural dynamics of OBE in the non-clinical population. A screening questionnaire was completed by 551 people, 24% of whom reported having at least one OBE. Participants who were free of any psychiatric or neurological diagnoses, including migraines, were invited to take part in subsequent EEG recording. EEG data were obtained from 19 people who had had an OBE and 20 who had not. Amplitude of the visual P1 ERP deflection and consistency of alpha-band phase locking were significantly reduced in the participants who had had an OBE. We did not find any group differences in resting state power or in visually induced gamma oscillations. These results provide support for the claim that cortical differences, particularly with respect to the timing of visual information processing, may give rise to OBE in clinically healthy individuals. To our knowledge, this study is the first to compare EEG variables obtained from people who have, and have not, had an OBE.
有人认为，皮质兴奋性的个体差异导致感觉信息处理的定时和整合受到干扰，这可能解释了为什么有些人在没有任何已知病理或精神状况的情况下会出现离体体验（OBE）。在这里，我们记录了经历过或没有经历过 OBE 的人的脑电图，以研究非临床人群中 OBE 的神经动力学。我们对 551 人进行了一项筛选问卷调查，其中 24%的人报告至少有过一次 OBE。邀请没有任何精神或神经诊断（包括偏头痛）的参与者参加后续的脑电图记录。我们从 19 名经历过 OBE 的参与者和 20 名没有经历过 OBE 的参与者中获得了脑电图数据。经历过 OBE 的参与者的视觉 P1 ERP 偏移幅度和 alpha 波段相位锁定的一致性显著降低。我们在静息状态功率或视觉诱导的伽马振荡中没有发现任何组间差异。这些结果为皮质差异，特别是视觉信息处理的定时差异可能导致临床健康个体出现 OBE 的说法提供了支持。据我们所知，这项研究是首次比较经历过和没有经历过 OBE 的人的脑电图变量。
