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
Hyperreligiosity is a psychiatric disturbance in which a person experiences intense religious beliefs or experiences that interfere with normal functioning. Hyperreligiosity generally includes abnormal beliefs and a focus on religious content, which interferes with work and social functioning. Hyperreligiosity may occur in a variety of disorders including epilepsy, psychotic disorders and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Hyperreligiosity is a symptom of Geschwind syndrome, which is associated with temporal lobe epilepsy.
Some individuals may exhibit hyperreligiosity, characterized by increased, usually intense, religious feelings and philosophical interests, and partial (temporal lobe) epilepsy patients with frequent numinous-like auras have greater ictal and interictal spirituality. Some auras include ecstatic experiences. It has been reported that many religious leaders exhibit this form of epilepsy. These religious feelings can motivate beliefs within any religion, including Voodoo, Christianity, Islam, and others. Furthermore, in Geschwind syndrome, "in someone from a strongly religious background hyperreligiosity might appear as deeply felt atheism". There are reports of patients converting between religions. A few patients internalize their religious feelings: when asked if they are religious they say they are not. One reviewer concluded that the evidence for a link between temporal lobe epilepsy and hyperreligiosity "isn't terribly compelling".
Hypergraphia is the tendency for extensive and compulsive writing or drawing, and has been observed in persons with temporal lobe epilepsy who have experienced multiple seizures. Those with hypergraphia display extreme attention to detail in their writing. Some such patients keep diaries recording meticulous details about their everyday lives. In certain cases, these writings demonstrate extreme interest in religious topics. Also, these individuals tend to have poor penmanship. The novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky showed symptoms of Geschwind syndrome, including hypergraphia. In some cases hypergraphia can manifest with compulsive drawing. Drawings by patients with hypergraphia exhibit repetition and a high level of detail, sometimes morphing writing with drawing
Hyperreligiosity is characterized by an increased tendency to report spiritual, religious or mystical experiences, religious delusions, rigid legalistic thoughts, and extravagant expression of religiosity. Hyperreligiosity may also include religious hallucinations.
Other medical conditions with similar symptoms include panic attacks, psychosis spectrum disorders, tardive dyskinesia, and occipital lobe epilepsy.
Focal impaired awareness seizures are seizures which impair consciousness to some extent: they alter the person's ability to interact normally with their environment. They usually begin with a focal aware seizure, then spread to a larger portion of the temporal lobe, resulting in impaired consciousness. They may include autonomic and psychic features present in focal aware seizures.
Signs may include:
- Motionless staring
- Automatic movements of the hands or mouth
- Confusion and disorientation
- Altered ability to respond to others, unusual speech
- Transient aphasia (losing ability to speak, read, or comprehend spoken word)
These seizures tend to have a warning or aura before they occur, and when they occur they generally tend to last only 1–2 minutes. It is not uncommon for an individual to be tired or confused for up to 15 minutes after a seizure has occurred, although postictal confusion can last for hours or even days. Though they may not seem harmful, due to the fact that the individual does not normally seize, they can be extremely harmful if the individual is left alone around dangerous objects. For example, if a person with complex partial seizures is driving alone, this can cause them to run into the ditch, or worse, cause an accident involving multiple people. With this type, some people do not even realize they are having a seizure and most of the time their memory from right before or after the seizure is wiped. First-aid is only required if there has been an injury or if this is the first time a person has had a seizure.