Are the voices in the heads of schizophrenics real?

A new study has proven a half-century-old hypothesis: the 'voices' people with schizophrenia hear actually originate from their own inner speech, but the brain mistakes them for sounds coming from outside.

Most patients with schizophrenia report hearing a voice constantly repeating in their heads - Photo: AI

For the past 50 years, scientists have suspected that auditory hallucinations (hearing voices that aren't real) in schizophrenic patients are due to the brain confusing "internal voices" with real sounds from the environment. However, because internal voices are inherently private experiences, proving this has been nearly impossible until now.

Thomas Whitford, a psychology researcher at the University of New South Wales (Australia), and his colleagues used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brainwaves when participants were "speaking in their heads," and compared that response to when they heard voices during hallucinations.

"When we speak, even just silently in our heads, the brain region that processes external sounds becomes less active because the brain has 'predicted' our own voice. But in people who hear 'voices,' that prediction process malfunctions. The brain reacts as if the sound is coming from someone else," Whitford explains.

According to ScienceAlert, the research team conducted the experiment on 142 people, divided into three groups: 55 people with schizophrenia who had recently experienced auditory hallucinations, 44 people with the disease but without auditory hallucinations, and 43 healthy people with no history of mental disorders.

Everyone was asked to listen to sounds through headphones while simultaneously imagining themselves whispering the word "bah" or "bih" at the same time as the sound was played. They had no idea whether the sound they heard matched the word they were thinking of.

The results showed that in the group experiencing auditory hallucinations, when the "voices in their heads" matched the external sounds, the brain reacted much more strongly than in the other two groups.

"In normal people, when we whisper in our heads, the brain region that processes sound becomes less active, similar to when we hear our own voice," researcher Thomas Whitford explains. "But in people who regularly hear 'voices,' this response is reversed: that brain region becomes more active, as if they were actually hearing someone else's voice."

This finding strongly reinforces the hypothesis that the voices heard by schizophrenic patients are their own inner voices, but the brain misinterprets the sound's origin, believing it to be from outside.

This could open new avenues for early diagnosis and intervention for individuals at risk of developing psychotic states, before severe symptoms appear.

This research not only helps unravel one of the oldest mysteries in psychiatry, but also contributes to reducing stigma for patients, showing that the "voices" they hear are not unfounded fantasies, but rather the result of a biological malfunction in brain function.

The work was published in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, October 2025.

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MINH HAI

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/giong-noi-trong-dau-nguoi-tam-than-phan-liet-co-that-khong-20251026215716943.htm