TY - JOUR
T1 - Hallucinations Following Occipital Lobe Damage
T2 - The Pathological Activation of Visual Representations*
AU - Anderson, Steven W.
AU - Rizzo, Matthew
PY - 1994/10/1
Y1 - 1994/10/1
N2 - Neuropsychological investigation of hallucinations may provide insight into the nature of these subjective phenomena, as well as inform theories of perception and recall. We studied a man who described continuous visual hallucinations of object fragments (e.g., lines, corners, patterns) in the left visual field following a stroke in the right occipital cortex. The subject performed normally on standardized measures of visual perception and other cognitive abilities. He had no personality disturbance, and EEG during hallucinations was normal. Review of our records of 211 cases with focal lesions involving visual cortex revealed 5 patients with similar complaints. The hallucinatory experience of such patients probably reflects pathological activation of neural ensembles in the regions bordering an occipital lesion. These regions are presumed to contain records of visual feature fragments which are co-activated by feedback projections in the earliest visual association cortices, where they produce meaningful patterns during normal recall.
AB - Neuropsychological investigation of hallucinations may provide insight into the nature of these subjective phenomena, as well as inform theories of perception and recall. We studied a man who described continuous visual hallucinations of object fragments (e.g., lines, corners, patterns) in the left visual field following a stroke in the right occipital cortex. The subject performed normally on standardized measures of visual perception and other cognitive abilities. He had no personality disturbance, and EEG during hallucinations was normal. Review of our records of 211 cases with focal lesions involving visual cortex revealed 5 patients with similar complaints. The hallucinatory experience of such patients probably reflects pathological activation of neural ensembles in the regions bordering an occipital lesion. These regions are presumed to contain records of visual feature fragments which are co-activated by feedback projections in the earliest visual association cortices, where they produce meaningful patterns during normal recall.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0028149118&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0028149118&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/01688639408402678
DO - 10.1080/01688639408402678
M3 - Article
C2 - 7836488
AN - SCOPUS:0028149118
VL - 16
SP - 651
EP - 663
JO - Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
JF - Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
SN - 0168-8634
IS - 5
ER -