OBJECTIVE: To report an unusual disorder of body schema and its neurologic and neuropsychological correlates. DESIGN AND METHODS: We describe a patient with a reduplicative phantom illusion of her lower limbs. Motor and sensory functions, as well as mental representation of body and space, were studied during the reduplication experience until its resolution. SETTING: Clinical neurology department in a primary care hospital. PATIENT: A 64-year-old, left-handed woman who experienced the uncontrollable and distressing feeling of having 4 legs, without delusional belief, after surgical removal of a right-predominant parasagittal parietal meningioma. This phenomenon spontaneously resolved after 2 weeks. INTERVENTION: None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clinical neurologic examinations and standardized neuropsychological tests, with emphasis on tests assessing orientation to body parts, right-left discrimination, and mental orientation in space. RESULTS: The patient had severe weakness and proprioceptive sensory loss in both lower limbs. She had no disturbances of body schema knowledge but a striking impairment in tasks requiring mental orientation in space, particularly for right-left laterality discrimination. Resolution of the reduplication experience correlated with improvement in the affected spatial abilities, while motor, sensory, and other cognitive functioning did not significantly change. CONCLUSION: This patient's reduplicative phantom illusion might be related to the combination of the severe somatosensory loss with an underlying impaired mental representation of relative positions in space.
OBJECTIVE: To report an unusual disorder of body schema and its neurologic and neuropsychological correlates. DESIGN AND METHODS: We describe a patient with a reduplicative phantom illusion of her lower limbs. Motor and sensory functions, as well as mental representation of body and space, were studied during the reduplication experience until its resolution. SETTING: Clinical neurology department in a primary care hospital. PATIENT: A 64-year-old, left-handed woman who experienced the uncontrollable and distressing feeling of having 4 legs, without delusional belief, after surgical removal of a right-predominant parasagittal parietal meningioma. This phenomenon spontaneously resolved after 2 weeks. INTERVENTION: None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clinical neurologic examinations and standardized neuropsychological tests, with emphasis on tests assessing orientation to body parts, right-left discrimination, and mental orientation in space. RESULTS: The patient had severe weakness and proprioceptive sensory loss in both lower limbs. She had no disturbances of body schema knowledge but a striking impairment in tasks requiring mental orientation in space, particularly for right-left laterality discrimination. Resolution of the reduplication experience correlated with improvement in the affected spatial abilities, while motor, sensory, and other cognitive functioning did not significantly change. CONCLUSION: This patient's reduplicative phantom illusion might be related to the combination of the severe somatosensory loss with an underlying impaired mental representation of relative positions in space.
Authors: Lukas Heydrich; Trevor J Dodds; Jane E Aspell; Bruno Herbelin; Heinrich H Bülthoff; Betty J Mohler; Olaf Blanke Journal: Front Psychol Date: 2013-12-18