Neuroscience
Weird Psychiatric Disorder Day
This morning's brief movie capsule didn't explain either delusional parasitosis or folie à deux. Wikipedia says that
Delusional parasitosis is a form of psychosis in which sufferers hold a delusional belief they are infested with parasites.
Mind Hacks has the best description of this bizarre condition in The curious case of Morgellons disease:
Morgellons is claimed to be a new form of skin disease by its sufferers but has been largely ignored by the medical community and some have claimed it is, in reality, a psychotic syndrome akin to delusional parasitosis.
Michael Shannon's character in Bug
suffered from delusions that far exceeded mere aphid infestation, and he easily persuaded his drunk, drug-using, desperate and lonely new girlfriend (Ashley Judd) that the tiny bugs were real, so that she spiraled down with him in a
folie à deux:
(literally, "a madness shared by two") is a rare psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis (particularly a paranoid or delusional belief) is transmitted from one individual to another. ... Recent psychiatric classifications refer to the syndrome as shared psychotic disorder (DSM-IV) (297.3) and induced delusional disorder (folie à deux) (F.24) in the ICD-10, although the research literature largely uses the original name.
The director was William Friedkin, of
The Exorcist fame, so be prepared for some over-the-top gory scenes of self-mutilation and self-dentistry (as well as some dark humor and romantic love).
Bug
(2006) - Brian F. O'Byrne
, Michael Shannon
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No Schizophrenia?
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Researchers have reported the strange case of a woman who confused her daughters for her sisters and her husband for her deceased father. It appears to be an unusual form of 'delusional misidentification syndrome', of which Capgras syndrome, in...
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Hiring Private Detectives To Investigate Paranoid Delusions
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The Tragedy Of Othello Syndrome
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Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Scales To Measure Psychosis In Parkinson's Disease
Goetz CG. Scales to evaluate psychosis in Parkinson's disease. Parkinsonism and Related Disorders. 2009 Dec; 15 Suppl 3, 38-341 Hallucinations and psychotic behaviors are a frequent non-motor aspect of Parkinson's disease and its treatment. These...
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