Figure 3 shows a range of visual perceptual symptoms cross-tabulated with their associated conditions and color-coded to reflect the relative frequency of each symptom within those patients that have visual perceptual pathology. Three syndromes emerge

that appear to be distinct both in their pattern of content and the fact that they remain largely independent – patients Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical with one syndrome rarely developing the same mixture of visual symptoms as found in another. One syndrome (prototypical disorder macular disease-see ref 74) consists of a range of simple phenomena including tessellopsia (brickwork and lattice patterns)62 and multiple dots (visual snow). Although the simplest of these phenomena may have their origins in aberrant retinal firing (eg, flashes or sparks), they can also be elicited by direct stimulation of the visual pathways and cortex41 and, given this ambiguity, it seems reasonable to keep them within the classificatory scheme at present. The simple phenomena as a whole Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical are associated to varying degree with more complex symptoms forming subsyndromes.74 One this website subsyndrome consists of visual perseveration (an object or object feature remaining fixed in retinal co-ordinates as the eye moves), delayed palinopsia (an object Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical or object feature returning to the field of view after a delay) and the appearance of hallucinations in the peripheral

visual field. Another subsyndrome consists of faces, typically grotesque with prominent features and a cartoon or sketch-like quality. The third subsyndrome is reminiscent of Leroy’s Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Lilliputian hallucinations. Each of these subsyndromes seems to relate to pathological

activity in a different cortical locus, the first to the parietal lobe, the second to the superior temporal sulcus, and the third to the anterior ventral temporal lobe.74 When other causes of visual hallucinations have been excluded, these symptoms occur without hallucinations in other modalities and without delusions. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical This syndrome is the Gold and Rabins CBS, broadened to include simple hallucinations and illusions (caricatured in Figure 4 L-NAME HCl CBS) and is found in both eye disease75 and pathology of the visual pathways.50,76-78 In 1973, the American neur ophthalmologist David Cogan hypothesized that such phenomena result from the release of visual cortical activity following the loss of visual inputs.79 Although today release is perhaps better termed deafferentation (see ref 80 for updated neurophysiology), there is much indirect evidence to support the view (eg, an increase in the risk of CBS with greater visual loss81-83). However, Terson’s 1920s critique of the ocular theory remains as relevant today as it was when first mooted. Deafferentation alone fails to account for why only a small proportion of ophthalmic patients experience visual hallucinations. Figure 3. Visual perceptual syndromes.