We report on two epileptic patients who developed acute psychosis after the use of topiramate (TPM). One patient exhibited severe psychomotor agitation, heteroaggressiveness, auditory and visual hallucinations as well as severe paranoid and mystic delusions. The other patient had psychomotor agitation, depersonalization, derealization, severe anxiety and deluded that he was losing his memory. B...

Background Delusional thinking is one of the hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia. However, the underlying neural substrate for delusions in schizophrenia remains unknown. In an attempt to further our understanding of the neural basis of delusions, we explored gray matter deficits and their clinical associations in first-episode schizophrenia patients with and without delusions. Methods Twenty-...

Persecutory delusions are proposed to be a defence against low self-esteem reaching conscious awareness (Bentall, Corcoran, Howard, Blackwood, & Kinderman, 2001). Key predictions of this proposal are that individuals with persecutory delusions will have lower implicit self-esteem and equivalent levels of explicit self-esteem compared to healthy controls. This study aims to test the predictions ...

The main purpose of the present study was to examine implicit and explicit self-esteem (SE) in patients with persecutory delusions. In samples of paranoid patients, depressed patients and healthy controls, implicit SE was assessed using the experimental task of Go/No-Go association, while explicit SE was measured using two self-reporting questionnaires: the World Assumption Scale (WAS) subscale...

Patients suffering from the Cotard syndrome can deny being alive, having guts, thinking or even existing. They can also complain that the world or time have ceased to exist. In this paper, I argue that even though the leading neurocognitive accounts have difficulties meeting that task, we should, and we can, make sense of these bizarre delusions. To that effect, I draw on the close connection b...

When humans move simultaneously both hands strong coupling effects arise and neither of the two hands is able to perform independent actions. It has been suggested that such motor constraints are tightly linked to action representation rather than to movement execution. Hence, bimanual tasks can represent an ideal experimental tool to investigate internal motor representations in those neurolog...

BACKGROUND Persecutory delusions are a key psychotic experience. A reasoning style known as 'jumping to conclusions' (JTC) - limited information gathering before reaching certainty in decision making - has been identified as a contributory factor in the occurrence of delusions. The cognitive processes that underpin JTC need to be determined in order to develop effective interventions for delusi...

A 72-year-old woman without any medical and psychiatric history, suffered from nausea, pain in the epigastria and constipation for over a year. She eventually lost 20 kilograms despite nightly drip-feeding. Extensive additional tests did not reveal any clues for her complaints. She remained convinced that her symptoms were a side-effect of anti-fungal medication she used. She was diagnosed with...

Background: Psychiatric manifestations of hyperthyroidism are usually anxiety and depression. Psychosis is rare and affects around 1 %. Case description: We present a 54 year old lady with hyperthyroidism who presented with psychosis as well as Capgras delusions. It is a disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by ...