Scientific article
English

Epileptic feeling of multiple presences in the frontal space

Errata
ContributorsPicard, Fabienne
Published inCortex, vol. 46, no. 8, p. 1037-1042
Publication date2010
Abstract

We describe the case of a patient who during a simple focal epileptic seizure due to vascular cerebral sequelae, reported the paroxysmal convincing feeling of the presence of several familiar persons in her peripersonal and extrapersonal space. Because the patient reported sensing multiple presences and recognizing them as family members, her case appears to contradict the hypothesis that the feeling of a non-existent human presence is an autoscopic phenomenon involving the neural "reduplication of the body". As an alternative hypothesis, I propose that the feeling of a non-existent presence may be only a hallucination of an ordinary "perception of the presence of another". Otherwise, the closest presence was felt in front of the patient, without lateralization in one hemispace, suggesting the importance to take into account other spatial dimensions than the left/right dimension, such as the front/back dimension, in the feeling of a presence. Illusory perceptive phenomena could participate in future in better understanding brain regions involved in the front/back dimension of the space perceptive representation.

Keywords
  • Epilepsies, Partial/psychology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Illusions/psychology
  • Middle Aged
  • Perceptual Disorders/psychology
  • Personal Space
  • Space Perception
Citation (ISO format)
PICARD, Fabienne. Epileptic feeling of multiple presences in the frontal space. In: Cortex, 2010, vol. 46, n° 8, p. 1037–1042. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2010.02.002
Main files (1)
Article (Published version)
accessLevelRestricted
Updates (1)
Corrigendum
accessLevelRestricted
Identifiers
Journal ISSN0010-9452
647views
1downloads

Technical informations

Creation28/05/2014 09:27:00
First validation28/05/2014 09:27:00
Update time14/03/2023 21:22:13
Status update14/03/2023 21:22:13
Last indexation30/10/2024 19:06:15
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack