A striking finding of our analyses is that the significantly increased lagged phase synchronization between the medial temporal cortex and prefrontal regions (i.e., ACC/mPFC) in patients with SLPE showed a positive correlation with the severity of psychopathological disturbance, in particular with positive symptoms. This speaks in favor of a strong relationship of the observed connectivity deficits with psychosis and SLPE pathophysiology. We also noticed that increased synchronization of the auditory cortex of the right hemisphere (where between-group connectivity deficits were found) with the Broca's area correlated with auditory hallucination scores. This result indicates functional connectivity of frontotemporal and language-auditory networks in patients with SLPE, which is consistent with fMRI reports demonstrating that functional connectivity of frontal and auditory cortex correlates with the severity of positive symptoms, including auditory hallucinations, as measured with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) [6]. Furthermore, this supports findings of previous studies proposing that the experience of auditory hallucinations is linked to increased activity in a frontotemporal network involved in speech generation (i.e., Brocás area) and speech perception (i.e., Wernickés area or auditory cortex) [74],
