Journal
BRAIN SCIENCES
Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 396-404Publisher
MDPI AG
DOI: 10.3390/brainsci4020396
Keywords
conversion disorder; hysteria; body-processing; mental-imagery; insular cortex; anterior cingulate cortex; fMRI
Categories
Funding
- Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship within the framework of the EU-FP7 program
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Patients with conversion disorder generally suffer from a severe neurological deficit which cannot be attributed to a structural neurological damage. In two patients with acute conversion paraplegia, investigation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed that the insular cortex, a limbic-related cortex involved in body-representation and subjective emotional experience, was activated not only during attempt to move the paralytic body-parts, but also during mental imagery of their movements. In addition, mental rotation of affected body-parts was found to be disturbed, as compared to unaffected body parts or external objects. fMRI during mental rotation of the paralytic body-part showed an activation of another limbic related region, the anterior cingulate cortex. These data suggest that conversion paraplegia is associated with pathological activity in limbic structures involved in body representation and a deficit in mental processing of the affected body-parts.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available