An Atypical Presentation of Visual Hallucinatory Experiences Following Prolonged Blindness*

*This work was supported by the Commission of the European Communities, RTD programme “Quality of Life and Management of Living Resource ”, QLK6-CT-2001-00279 and by a Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología grant TIC2003-09557-CO2-02.

Abstract

We report a patient with long-standing blindness experiencing both simple and complex visual hallucinations secondary to a cortical arteriovenous malformation (AVM). The hallucinations were located in the right visual field corresponding to the contra-lateral site of cortical damage. This case contributes to our understanding of neurophysiological mechanisms underlying visual hallucinations and ongoing research investigating the phenomenology of hallucinations with respect to the cause and localization of neural damage.

Notes

*This work was supported by the Commission of the European Communities, RTD programme “Quality of Life and Management of Living Resource ”, QLK6-CT-2001-00279 and by a Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología grant TIC2003-09557-CO2-02.