Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0011551 (depersonalization)
 1,117 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Characteristic pathologic changes of cranial computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have never been reported in "Alice in Wonderland" syndrome (AIWS) caused by Epstein-Barr (EB) virus infection. We present here a 10-year-old girl with AIWS with an abnormal MR finding. During the course of serologically confirmed EB virus encephalopathy, she had distortion of the body image, visual hallucinations and depersonalization characteristic of AIWS. MRI demonstrated transient T2 prolongation and swelling of the cerebral cortex, especially at the bilateral temporal lobes, bilateral cingulate gyrus, right upper frontal gyrus, bilateral caudate nucleus, and bilateral putamen, whereas CT showed no abnormalities. Transient MRI lesions were occasionally reported in patients with EB virus encephalopathy/encephalitis who presented visual illusions and psychotic reactions, although the diagnosis of AIWS was not described. We consider that any patient with symptoms of AIWS should have MRI because the abnormal MRI findings may disappear in a short period.
 ...
PMID:[Abnormal magnetic resonance imaging in a child with Alice in Wonderland syndrome following Epstein-Barr virus infection]. 1213 88

In 1955, English psychiatrist John Todd defined the Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome (AIWS) as self-experienced paroxysmal body-image illusions involving distortions of the size, mass, or shape of the patient's own body or its position in space, often accompanied by depersonalization and/or derealization. AIWS had been described by American Neurologist Caro Lippman in 1952, but Todd's report was the most influential. Todd named the syndrome for the perceptual disorder of altered body image experienced by the protagonist in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). In Carroll's original story, Alice experienced several dramatic changes in body size and shape (e.g., shrinking to 10 inches high, growing unnaturally tall but not any wider, and growing unnaturally large). Todd reported 6 cases of AIWS, all of whom had episodic body-image distortions like those experienced by Lewis Carroll's Alice character; some also had visual perceptual disturbances, but none had visual perceptual disorders without body-image distortions. Therefore, AIWS may be accompanied by visual perceptual disorders (e.g., micropsia, macropsia, telopsia, pelopsia), but basing the diagnosis of AIWS on isolated visual perceptual disorders, as has subsequently been done by a number of authors, is inaccurate and misleading. Cases of isolated visual illusions without self-perceived distortions of body size, shape, or form, do not meet Todd's original criteria, nor are they commensurate with the experiences of the protagonist in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Furthermore, such cases differ by age and etiology from those that involve somesthetic perceptual disorders. Therefore, the use of the term AIWS for isolated visual illusions is problematic and should be discouraged. Although Todd's and Lippman's cases were adolescents or adults, AIWS is most commonly reported in children. Reported causes include infection (especially with Epstein Barr virus), migraine, epilepsy, depression, and toxic and febrile delirium.
 ...
PMID:The Alice-in-Wonderland Syndrome. 2915 Oct 98