Palinopsia from a posteriorly placed glioma--an insight into its possible causes

When Left is One and Right is Double: An Experimental Investigation of Visual Allesthesia after Right Parietal Damage

Illusory visual phenomena, such as palinopsia, polyopsia or allesthesia, are rare manifestations of posterior cortical damage. Symptoms are characterized by illusory perceptions, ranging from isolated stationary objects to scenes and moving persons. Such illusions may appear while the original object is still in view, or become manifest with a delay and last for minutes, hours or even days. Some authors have suggested a disinhibited cortical response underlying visual illusions, but experimental studies supporting this hypothesis are lacking. Here, we examined a rare patient who after focal right parietal injury consistently reported a second stimulus on the left when briefly shown a target in his right hemifield. The patient perceived the illusory stimulus as less intense, and therefore concluded that it must have a different shape than the original stimulus. A masking experiment revealed that the frequency of the illusion was inversely related to the visibility of the original stimulus, suggesting that it depended on early, feedforward visual processing. We propose that illusory perceptions reflect the interplay of two physiological processes: a fast and automatic activation of contralateral, homotopic visual cortex after unilateral stimulation, and the lack of top-down inhibition following damage to the posterior parietal cortex.

Palinopsia Following Acute Unilateral Partial Vestibular Deafferentation: A Case Report

Palinopsia is defined as the persistence or reappearance of images after cessation of the visual stimulus. One patient presented episodes of palinopsia after the functional loss of the 3 semicircular canals of the right ear while the otolithic function was preserved. None of classical causes was identified in this patient, intoxications, brain tumors, migraines, psychiatric disorders, etc. For a movement to be perceived as a single event, central processes of temporal integration are necessary to correct the shift between the rapid vestibular information, and the slow visual information. However, it has been shown on animal models that vestibular inputs are slower than normal in case of peripheral deafferentation limited to the canalar function with preservation of the otolithic function, which is the case in this patient. Therefore, we hypothesize that episodes of palinopsia he presents result from the fact that temporal integration processes do not take into account the slower than normal vestibular information due to the peripheral disorder and continue to slow it down. Thus, the patient keeps the visual image in memory until the late arrival of the vestibular information.

Is palinopsia in migraineurs an enhanced physiological phenomenon?

Background

We report the occurrence of palinopsia in patients with migraine and its correlation with migraine characteristics, triggers and allodynia.

Methods

This study included 153 consecutive patients with migraine and recorded their clinical details, including allodynia and migraine triggers and characteristics. Palinopsia was evaluated in migraineurs and 101 controls by using a questionnaire and a novel method.

Results

According to the questionnaire assessment, 9.8% migraineurs had palinopsia. According to the novel method, 57.5% of migraineurs and 12% of controls had palinopsia. Migraineurs most frequently had palinopsia to red color (51.6%), followed by yellow (49.7%), blue (47.7%), green (46.4%) and the least to white (30.7%). A similar pattern with a lesser frequency was noted in controls. The duration of palinopsia was longer in migraineurs than in controls (32.68 ± 20.24 vs. 5.92 ± 4.55 seconds; p < 0.001). Migraineurs with palinopsia differed from those without in terms of noise as a migraine trigger ( p < 0.001) and allodynia as a migraine-associated phenomenon ( p = 0.03). In multivariable analysis, predictors of palinopsia were the frequency ( p = 0.003) and severity ( p = 0.04) of headache and the presence of headache during examination ( p = 0.0001).

Conclusion

Migraineurs had a pattern of palinopsia to different colors that was similar to the controls, but the palinopsia of migraineurs was more frequent and of longer duration, especially during headaches.