Pure Verbal Autopalinacousis

Abstract

Introduction

Palinacousis, the phenomenon in which sounds are internally perseverated or repeated has not heretofore been reported occurring exclusively to an individual’s own voice.

Methods

A 52-year-old woman started to experience auditory hallucinations of her voice at 3 years old when she began talking out loud. The auditory hallucinations of her own voice, yclept autopalinacousis, consisting of one to three words, were affectively neutral, rarely disruptive, and unchanged by psychiatric medications. During these palinacoustic phenomena, she would hear the last few words she had spoken out loud repeat inside her head in both ears. When the autopalinacousis occurred, the words were repeated just once. Sound quality was an exact replication of how it was originally spoken. She only experienced the palinacousis to her own voice and never to any other sounds. For the palinacousis to occur, she had to verbally state the words loud enough for her to hear. If she spoke out loud but could not hear her own voice, via occlusion of her external auditory canal or presence of loud noise, the internal auditory repetition would not occur. However, after the auditory stimulus was sensed, nothing could reduce the palinacousis. The palinacousis could occur if she read out loud, but not if she read silently. The frequency of the autopalinacousis ranged from a few times a week to several times a day and was associated with reduced sleep, but unaffected by mood, psychiatric medications, or headaches. Five months prior to her psychiatric hospitalization, she began to experience paranoid delusions, decreased sleep, increased activity, rapid speech, and auditory hallucinations of one male and two female voices. In contrast to autopalinacousis, these auditory hallucinations consisted of full phrases or sentences, were affectively charged, intrusive, and diminished by psychiatric medications. No palinacousis occurred with the hallucinated voices.

Results

Abnormalities: Mental Status Examination: Speech: pressured. Oriented x2. Memory: ability to remember 5 digits forwards and 2 digits backwards. She is not able to spell with word “world.” Calculation ability: poor. MRI of brain with and without contrast: normal.

Discussion

In cases where patients with psychotic illness experience palinacousis, the palinacousis always appear after the psychotic illness has already manifested, anywhere from less than a year to 15 years later. Our patient’s palinacousis presented almost 5 decades before the onset of her auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions. Furthermore, her palinacousis only occurred to her own spoken voice and never to any other voices. In those who present with auditory hallucinations, query as to the presence and characteristics of palinacousis is warranted.

Funding

No Funding