Made by DATEXIS (Data Science and Text-based Information Systems) at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin
Deep Learning Technology: Sebastian Arnold, Betty van Aken, Paul Grundmann, Felix A. Gers and Alexander Löser. Learning Contextualized Document Representations for Healthcare Answer Retrieval. The Web Conference 2020 (WWW'20)
Funded by The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy; Grant: 01MD19013D, Smart-MD Project, Digital Technologies
Treatment varies for micropsia due to the large number of different causes for the condition.
Treatments involving the occlusion of one eye and the use of a prism fitted over an eyeglass lens have both been shown to provide relief from micropsia.
Micropsia that is induced by macular degeneration can be treated in several ways. A study called AREDS (age-related eye disease study) determined that taking dietary supplements containing high-dose antioxidants and zinc produced significant benefits with regard to disease progression. This study was the first ever to prove that dietary supplements can alter the natural progression and complications of a disease state. Laser treatments also look promising but are still in clinical stages.
Current experimental evidence focuses on the involvement of the occipitotemporal pathway in both the perceptual equivalence of objects across translations of retinal position and also across size modifications. Recent evidence points to this pathway as a mediator for an individual's perception of size. Even further, numerous cases suggest that size perception may be dissociated from other aspects of visual perception such as color and movement. However, more research is called for to correctly relate the condition to defined physiological conditions.
Current research is being done on macular degeneration which could help prevent cases of micropsia. A variety of drugs that block vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs) are being evaluated as a treatment option. These treatments for the first time have produced actual improvements in vision, rather than simply delaying or arresting the continued loss of vision characteristic of macular degeneration. A number of surgical treatments are also being investigated for macular degeneration lesions that may not qualify for laser treatment, including macular translocation to a healthier area of the eye, displacement of submacular blood using gas, and removing membranes by surgery.
There is limited data on treating the visual disturbances associated with HPPD, persistent visual aura, or post-head trauma visual disturbances, and pharmaceutical treatment is empirically-based. It is not clear if the etiology or type of illusory symptom influences treatment efficacy. Since the symptoms are usually benign, treatment is based on the patient’s zeal and willingness to try many different drugs. There are cases which report successful treatment with clonidine, clonazepam, lamotrigine, nimodipine, topiramate, verapamil, divalproex sodium, gabapentin, furosemide, and acetazolamide, as these drugs have mechanisms that decrease neuronal excitability. However, other patients report treatment failure from the same drugs. Based on the available evidence and side-effect profile, clonidine might be an attractive treatment option. Many patients report improvement from sunglasses. FL-41 tinted lenses may provide additional relief, as they have shown some efficacy in providing relief to visually-sensitive migraineurs.
Research needs to be performed on the efficacy of the various pharmaceuticals for treating illusory palinopsia. It is unclear if the symptoms' natural history and treatment are influenced by the cause. It is also not clear if there is treatment efficacy overlap for illusory palinopsia and the other co-existing diffuse persistent illusory phenomenon such as visual snow, oscillopsia, dysmetropsia, and halos.
Future advancements in fMRI could potentially further our understanding of hallucinatory palinopsia and visual memory. Increased accuracy in fMRI might also allow for the observation of subtle metabolic or perfusional changes in illusory palinopsia, without the use of ionizing radiation present in CT scans and radioactive isotopes. Studying the psychophysics of light and motion perception could advance our understanding of illusory palinopsia, and vice versa. For example, incorporating patients with visual trailing into motion perception studies could advance our understanding of the mechanisms of visual stability and motion suppression during eye movements (e.g. saccadic suppression).
Palinopsia (Greek: "palin" for "again" and "opsia" for "seeing") is the persistent recurrence of a visual image after the stimulus has been removed. Palinopsia is not a diagnosis, it is a diverse group of pathological visual symptoms with a wide variety of causes. Visual perseveration is synonymous with palinopsia.
In 2014, Gersztenkorn and Lee comprehensively reviewed all cases of palinopsia in the literature and subdivided it into two clinically relevant groups: illusory palinopsia and hallucinatory palinopsia. Hallucinatory palinopsia, usually due to seizures or posterior cortical lesions, describes afterimages that are formed, long-lasting, and high resolution. Illusory palinopsia, usually due to migraines, head trauma, prescription drugs, or hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), describes afterimages that are affected by ambient light and motion and are unformed, indistinct, or low resolution.
Of the published cases of palinopsia that are idiopathic or attributed to migraines, HPPD, prescription drugs, or head trauma, 94% described illusory palinopsia. Trazodone, nefazodone, mirtazapine, topiramate, clomiphene, oral contraceptives, and risperidone have been reported to cause illusory palinopsia. Clomiphene and oral contraceptives are the only prescription drugs reported to cause permanent symptoms. HPPD is most common after LSD ingestion, but can occur after any hallucinogen use. HPPD is commonly described in psychiatric literature and illusory palinopsia symptoms are sometimes not defined as palinopsia. It is not clear if there is a relationship between HPPD and the quantity and strength of hallucinogen doses taken.
Teleopsia is a vision perception disorder, in which objects appear much farther away than they are. Teleopsia is a disorder associated with dysmetropsia.
The average age of the start of Alice in Wonderland syndrome is six but it is very normal for some to experience the syndrome from childhood to their late 20s. It is also thought that this syndrome is hereditary because many parents that have AIWS report their children having it as well.
Whatever the cause, the bodily related distortions can recur several times a day and may take some time to abate. Understandably, the person can become alarmed, frightened, and panic-stricken throughout the course of the hallucinations—maybe even hurt themselves or others around them. The symptoms of the syndrome themselves are not harmful and are likely to disappear with time.