The Neuroscience of Visual Hallucinations

The Neuroscience of Visual Hallucinations
Author: Daniel Collerton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2015-02-23
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1118731700

Each year, some two million people in the United Kingdom experience visual hallucinations. Infrequent, fleeting visual hallucinations, often around sleep, are a usual feature of life. In contrast, consistent, frequent, persistent hallucinations during waking are strongly associated with clinical disorders; in particular delirium, eye disease, psychosis, and dementia. Research interest in these disorders has driven a rapid expansion in investigatory techniques, new evidence, and explanatory models. In parallel, a move to generative models of normal visual function has resolved the theoretical tension between veridical and hallucinatory perceptions. From initial fragmented areas of investigation, the field has become increasingly coherent over the last decade. Controversies and gaps remain, but for the first time the shapes of possible unifying models are becoming clear, along with the techniques for testing these. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the neuroscience of visual hallucinations and the clinical techniques for testing these. It brings together the very latest evidence from cognitive neuropsychology, neuroimaging, neuropathology, and neuropharmacology, placing this within current models of visual perception. Leading researchers from a range of clinical and basic science areas describe visual hallucinations in their historical and scientific context, combining introductory information with up-to-date discoveries. They discuss results from the main investigatory techniques applied in a range of clinical disorders. The final section outlines future research directions investigating the potential for new understandings of veridical and hallucinatory perceptions, and for treatments of problematic hallucinations. Fully comprehensive, this is an essential reference for clinicians in the fields of the psychology and psychiatry of hallucinations, as well as for researchers in departments, research institutes and libraries. It has strong foundations in neuroscience, cognitive science, optometry, psychiatry, psychology, clinical medicine, and philosophy. With its lucid explanation and many illustrations, it is a clear resource for educators and advanced undergraduate and graduate students.

The Neuroscience of Hallucinations

The Neuroscience of Hallucinations
Author: Renaud Jardri
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 567
Release: 2012-09-25
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1461441218

Hallucinatory phenomena have held the fascination of science since the dawn of medicine, and the popular imagination from the beginning of recorded history. Their study has become a critical aspect of our knowledge of the brain, making significant strides in recent years with advances in neuroimaging, and has established common ground among what normally are regarded as disparate fields. The Neuroscience of Hallucinations synthesizes the most up-to-date findings on these intriguing auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory, and somatosensory experiences, from their molecular origins to their cognitive expression. In recognition of the wide audience for this information among the neuroscientific, medical, and psychology communities, its editors bring a mature evidence base to highly subjective experience. This knowledge is presented in comprehensive detail as leading researchers across the disciplines ground readers in the basics, offer current cognitive, neurobiological, and computational models of hallucinations, analyze the latest neuroimaging technologies, and discuss emerging interventions, including neuromodulation therapies, new antipsychotic drugs, and integrative programs. Among the topics covered: Hallucinations in the healthy individual. A pathophysiology of transdiagnostic hallucinations including computational and connectivity modeling. Molecular mechanisms of hallucinogenic drugs. Structural and functional variations in the hallucinatory brain in schizophrenia. The neurodevelopment of hallucinations. Innovations in brain stimulation techniques and imaging-guided therapy. Psychiatrists, neurologists, neuropsychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, clinical psychologists, and pharmacologists will welcome The Neuroscience of Hallucinations as a vital guide to the current state and promising future of their shared field.

Hallucinations

Hallucinations
Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2012-11-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0307402193

Hallucinations, for most people, imply madness. But there are many different types of non-psychotic hallucination caused by various illnesses or injuries, by intoxication--even, for many people, by falling sleep. From the elementary geometrical shapes that we see when we rub our eyes to the complex swirls and blind spots and zigzags of a visual migraine, hallucination takes many forms. At a higher level, hallucinations associated with the altered states of consciousness that may come with sensory deprivation or certain brain disorders can lead to religious epiphanies or conversions. Drawing on a wealth of clinical examples from his own patients as well as historical and literary descriptions, Oliver Sacks investigates the fundamental differences and similarities of these many sorts of hallucinations, what they say about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.

Hallucinations

Hallucinations
Author: Jan Dirk Blom
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2011-12-21
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1461409586

The work aims to provide an overview of the field of contemporary hallucinations research. It will consist of 28 chapters, the writing of which will be put out to international experts specialized in the specific fields at hand. The work aims to be unique, in that it intends to cover many different types of hallucination, and to approach the subject matter from four different perspectives, i.e., conceptual, phenomenological, neuroscientific, and therapeutic.

The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination

The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination
Author: Anna Abraham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 865
Release: 2020-06-18
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1108429246

The human imagination manifests in countless different forms. We imagine the possible and the impossible. How do we do this so effortlessly? Why did the capacity for imagination evolve and manifest with undeniably manifold complexity uniquely in human beings? This handbook reflects on such questions by collecting perspectives on imagination from leading experts. It showcases a rich and detailed analysis on how the imagination is understood across several disciplines of study, including anthropology, archaeology, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and the arts. An integrated theoretical-empirical-applied picture of the field is presented, which stands to inform researchers, students, and practitioners about the issues of relevance across the board when considering the imagination. With each chapter, the nature of human imagination is examined - what it entails, how it evolved, and why it singularly defines us as a species.

Genomics, Circuits, and Pathways in Clinical Neuropsychiatry

Genomics, Circuits, and Pathways in Clinical Neuropsychiatry
Author: Thomas Lehner
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 798
Release: 2016-06-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0128005300

This foundational work comprehensively examines the current state of the genetics, genomics and brain circuitry of psychiatric and neurological disorders. It consolidates discoveries of specific genes and genomic regions associated with these conditions, the genetic and anatomic architecture of these syndromes, and addresses how recent advances in genomics are leading to a reappraisal of the biology underlying clinical neuroscience. In doing so, it critically examines the promise and limitations of these discoveries toward treatment, and to the interdisciplinary nature of understanding brain and behavior. Coverage includes new discoveries regarding autism, epilepsy, intellectual disability, dementias, movement disorders, language impairment, disorders of attention, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Genomics, Circuits, and Pathways in Clinical Neuropsychiatry focuses on key concepts, challenges, findings, and methods in genetics, genomics, molecular pathways, brain circuitry, and related neurobiology of neurologic and psychiatric disorders. - Provides interdisciplinary appeal in psychiatry, neurology, neuroscience, and genetics - Identifies key concepts, methods, and findings - Includes coverage of multiple disorders from autism to schizophrenia - Reviews specific genes associated with disorders - Discusses the genetic architecture of these syndromes - Explains how recent findings are influencing the understanding of biology - Clarifies the promise of these findings for future treatment

The Paroxysmal Disorders

The Paroxysmal Disorders
Author: Bettina Schmitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2010-09-09
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1139487566

The paroxysmal disorders present neurologists and other medical professionals with diagnostic problems across a range of disorders, including multiple sclerosis, migraine and epilepsy. This new English language edition of a compendium of the paroxysmal disorders, originally published in German as Paroxysmale Störugen in der Neurologie, is an informative and practical resource for clinicians, which provides invaluable help with differential diagnosis and management. Fully updated throughout, this new edition comprehensively covers the entire spectrum of the paroxysmal disorders, including sudden falls, headache, vertigo attacks, memory loss, visual disturbances, seizures and anxiety. Each chapter is practice oriented, covering definitions, etiology, epidemiology, diagnosis, examination techniques and therapy. Detailed guidelines for gathering case-histories, essential for accurate diagnosis, are also provided. Important reading for clinicians, professionals and academic researchers working in neurology, psychiatry, epilepsy, internal medicine and ENT.

Neurology of Vision and Visual Disorders

Neurology of Vision and Visual Disorders
Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0128213787

Neurology of Vision and Visual Disorders, Volume 178 in the Handbooks of Neurology series provides comprehensive summaries of recent research on the brain and nervous system. This volume reviews alterations in vision that stem from the retina to the cortex. Coverage includes content on vision and driving derived from the large amount of time devoted in clinics to determining who is safe to drive, along with research on the interplay between visual loss, attention and strategic compensations that may determine driving suitability. The title concludes with vision therapies and the evidence behind these approaches. Each chapter is co-written by a basic scientist collaborating with a clinician to provide a solid underpinning of the mechanisms behind the clinical syndromes. - Reviews the neurological underpinnings of visual perception disorders - Encompasses the cortex to the retina - Covers functional organization, electrophysiology and subcortical visual pathways - Discusses assessment, diagnosis and management of visual perception disorders - Includes international experts from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Singapore, and the UK and US

Psychiatry of Parkinson's Disease

Psychiatry of Parkinson's Disease
Author: K. P. Ebmeier
Publisher: Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3805598009

A state-of-the-art review on psychiatric syndromes common in Parkinson's disease Psychiatric symptoms are common in the neurological and geriatric care of patients with Parkinson's disease. This book assembles short reviews from experts in the field to chart the various psychiatric syndromes known in Parkinson's disease, their presentation, etiology and management. Presented are special topics on epidemiology of psychiatric symptoms, affective disorders and apathy, early cognitive impairment through to dementia, visuoperceptual dysfunction, psychotic disorders, sleep disturbances, impulse disorders and sexual problems. Further, rarely discussed issues, such as the relationship between somatoform disorders and parkinsonism are reviewed. This publication is essential reading for old age psychiatrists, gerontologists and neurologists who work with patients suffering from Parkinson's disease. In addition, health practitioners who deal with senior patients, as well as scientists who need a quick update on the progress in this important clinical field will find this volume a helpful reference.