Phantom eye syndrome

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Phantom eye syndrome
Anatomy of the eye. The external eye muscles are shown in red.
SpecialtyPsychiatry, Neurology
Duration11-15 days
Frequency5%

The phantom eye syndrome (PES) is a

visual hallucinations after the removal of an eye (enucleation, evisceration
).

Symptoms

Many patients experience one or more phantom phenomena after the removal of the eye:

  • Phantom pain in the (removed) eye (prevalence: 26%)[1][2]
  • Non-painful phantom sensations[1][2]
  • Visual
    Charles Bonnet syndrome
    ) are less frequent (prevalence 10%) and often consist of detailed images.

Pathogenesis

Phantom pain and non-painful phantom sensations

Phantom pain and non-painful phantom sensations result from changes in the central nervous system due to denervation of a body part.[3][4] Phantom eye pain is considerably less common than phantom limb pain. The prevalence of phantom pain after limb amputation ranged from 50% to 78%. The prevalence of phantom eye pain, in contrast, is about 30%.

Post-amputation changes in the

somatosensory
representation of the eye compared with the limbs.

In limb amputees, some,

somatosensory cortex.[7]
This study suggests that preoperative and postoperative pain may be an important co-factor for somatosensory reorganization and the development of phantom experiences.

Visual hallucinations

Enucleation of an eye and, similarly, retinal damage, leads to a cascade of events in the cortical areas receiving visual input. Cortical GABAergic (GABA:

glutamatergic excitation increases, followed by increased visual excitability or even spontaneous activity in the visual cortex.[8]
It is believed that spontaneous activity in the denervated visual cortex is the neural correlate of visual hallucinations.

Treatment

Treatment of painful phantom eye syndrome is provision of ocular prosthesis in the empty orbit.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 27474612
    .
  2. ^ a b c Shah S.I.A (1994). "Painful Phantom Eye" (PDF). Pak J Ophthalmol. 10 (4 (Index Issue)): 77–78.
  3. PMID 9762952
    .
  4. PMID 11460799
    .
  5. S2CID 24665497
    .
  6. S2CID 34799505
    .
  7. S2CID 30936812
    .
  8. PMID 12671230. Archived from the original
    on 2013-01-29. Retrieved 2008-09-23.

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phantom_eye_syndrome&oldid=1162250352"