I'm not a psychiatrist, but I wonder if it is possible to reliable identify the presence of hallucinations. And if the method can be translated to the animal models. I would greatly appreciate the variety of opinions.
Sometimes darting eyes, hands over ears or plugs in ears, loud music on ear phones, head shakes, holding the head, banging the head, talking back, unprovoked smiles or laughs or shouts, frightened looks, looking over one's shoulder, listening attitude, dazed look. Not sure whether any of this applies to lab animals.
One group where it is hard to determine if hallucinations are present is of psychotic mental health professionals, who will rarely volunteer that they have them.
"Not sure whether any of this applies to lab animals."
No need to bother with this, animals can simply be interrogated, and they will give a more honest answer than a psychotic psychiatrist.. There are many animal models of tinnitus, as included in the DSM definition of auditory hallucination.
Auditory hallucinations can activate the Wernicke´s Area (41 and 42 Broadmann) in fRMN you required training in psychosis symptoms to identify hallucinatory behaviors
in animal models you can review ref Schizophr Bull 2005 31(1):139-153, and Arch Gen Psychiatry 1990, 47(2): 181-182
"in animal models you can review ref Schizophr Bull 2005"
Any animal model of schizophrenia that ignores hallucinations is at best limited, at worst irrelevant.
You shuld find the cause and origin of perceptive disturbances with clinical examinations of sensory system (ey, ear) and with functional tests (VEP, AEP, SEP, EMNG...)
In human beings, we suspect the presence of hallucinations if there are observed "hallucinatory behavior" e.g. talking to, or scaring from an unseen, avoidance behavior based on bad olfactory hallucinations. Hallucinatory behaviors are objective findings seen by family members or ward nurses. I do not know how to translate this into animals.
"I do not know how to translate this into animals"
Tinnitus can be easily induced in animals, eg by loud noise. Since the auditory hallucinations of schizophrenics comprise noises, music and voices, animal models of tinnitus are appropriate. I would not be surprised if musical hallucinations could be induced in animals, and it should be quite straightforward to train the animals to respond when they hear, or think they hear, music.
Anthony G Gordon, it is a very interesting idea! For example, if we create a conditional mutant to study the effect of some mutation on hallucinations, than we can form a conditional reflex in uninduced animal (rather generalized conditional reflex, though) and then induce and observe, if the animal reports of hallucinating.
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