Poststroke delusions: What about the neuroanatomical and neurofunctional basis?

ABSTRACT

Delusion is a belief about yourself, people, or events that has no accordance with reality. Although it is known that stroke could cause various psychiatric and psychological effects, including depression, anxiety, and aggressiveness, psychotic symptoms, especially delusions, are rather uncommon. The most investigated poststroke delusions are paranoid type, nihilistic, and Fregoli syndrome. We will describe two patients showing delusion symptoms (Cotard-like and erotomanic ones) that occurred after a stroke involving the right temporal lobe, the basal ganglia and insular region, persisting for a long period after the stroke onset. We have, therefore, supposed that the simultaneous involvement of these brain areas could be involved in the neuroanatomical basis of delusions, as also demonstrated by the neurofunctional evaluation.

KEYWORDS:

• Basal ganglia
• Cotard syndrome
• erotomanic delusions
• functional magnetic imaging
• insula

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank Prof. Agata Grosso for English editing.