Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Aug 8:4:109.
doi: 10.3389/fneur.2013.00109. eCollection 2013.

Musical hallucinations and forgotten tunes - case report and brief literature review

Danilo Vitorovic  1 , José Biller
Affiliations

Musical hallucinations and forgotten tunes - case report and brief literature review

Danilo Vitorovic et al. Front Neurol. .

Abstract

Musical hallucinations represent a specific form of auditory hallucinations whereby patients experience formed music without an external source. We describe a 60-year-old woman with history of bilateral hearing impairment and tinnitus who experienced both recognizable and non-recognizable songs. Curiously, she was able to reproduce non-recognizable songs in a way that could be recognized by others. This phenomenon is in line with current understanding that musical hallucinations represent abnormal activity in the auditory associative cortices, raising intriguing questions regarding memory, forgetting, and access to lost memories.

Keywords: auditory processing; memory; musical hallucinations.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Fukunishi I, Horikawa N, Onai H. Prevalence rate of musical hallucinations in a general hospital setting. Psychosomatics (1998) 39:175.10.1016/S0033-3182(98)71368-4 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cole MG, Dowson L, Dendukuri N, Belzile E. The prevalence and phenomenology of auditory hallucinations among elderly subjects attending an audiology clinic. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry (2002) 17:444–5210.1002/gps.618 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hermesh H. Musical hallucinations: prevalence in psychotic and nonpsychotic outpatients. J Clin Psychiatry (2004) 65:191–710.4088/JCP.v65n0208 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Evers S. Musical hallucinations. Curr Psychiatry Rep (2006) 8:205–1010.1007/s11920-006-0024-0 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cascino GD, Adams RD. Brainstem auditory hallucinosis. Neurology (1986) 36:1042–710.1212/WNL.36.8.1042 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources