Optical differences in multiple personality disorder: a second look

Article Abstract:

A previous study reported that patients with multiple personality disorder (MPD, a condition in which a patient develops more than one personality) had different levels of visual functioning when they were 'in' different (alter) personalities. The current study, carried out by the author of the previous report and colleagues, attempted to replicate the earlier research. Twenty patients (19 were women) with MPD were selected from therapists' private practices; an additional 20 control subjects were chosen from hospital staff and asked to role-play MPD patients. All subjects were then tested by an ophthalmologist, with 10-minute intervals between each personality switch and the eye examination. Visual acuity, refraction, function of the eye muscles, physiology of the eye, and peripheral vision were evaluated. The results showed some differences in visual functioning between patients' alter personalities, but the aspects of vision where differences were found were not consistent from subject to subject. The visual functioning of some patients did not change when their personalities changed. Nor were the tests where MPD patients demonstrated different functioning for alter personalities the same tests in the current study and the previous study. Suggestions are presented on how to improve research designs for future psychophysiological studies. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Testing, Visual perception, Psychotherapy patients, Vision tests

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Panic disorder associated with right and parahippocampal infarction

Article Abstract:

Research suggests that panic disorder might be caused by biological factors rather than purely psychological ones. Recent reports have described abnormalities in the right hippocampal area (medial temporal lobe) of the brain. In the present case, a 36-year-old woman was hospitalized for symptoms of chronic inflammation of her heart tissue. She had a history of several years of anxiety attacks as well, during which she complained of sensations of cold, and numbness as well as feeling faint, short of breath, dizzy, and fearful. Attacks were unpredictable, and there was no family history of panic disorder or other psychiatric symptoms. A computerized tomography (CT) scan of the brain revealed two lesions, one on the left side of the brain and one in the right parahippocampal region. The patient began to experience panic attacks one month after she developed neurological symptoms during her recovery from heart surgery. It is suggested, therefore, that this woman's history places the commencement of the panic attacks with the development of the right hemisphere lesion, thereby associating the two. The authors acknowledge that the clinical history is complex and incomplete. The case does, however, lend further evidence to the need to evaluate structural brain lesions in patients with panic attacks. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Panic disorders, Panic disorder, Hippocampus (Brain)

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Optical differences in cases of multiple personality disorder

Article Abstract:

Nine multiple personality patients had differences in optical function between their various personalities five times greater than healthy people role-playing this disorder. Affected eye functions included visual acuity with and without correction, visual fields, refraction (bending of light to focus), and eye muscle balance. This type of testing may be useful in substantiating multiple personality disorder (MPD) as a clinical disorder and may be used to diagnose MPD in the future.

Abnormalities, Eye, Personality disorders

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