The disconcerting Capgras syndrome

Capgras syndrome. You may have heard of it, or it is possible that it may be the first time you hear it.If so, we will give you an example to give you a simple idea what it is: imagine that you are sitting next to your partner watching the TV on a normal day, a quiet afternoon, like any other.Suddenly, your partner turns to you terrified and asks you who you are.thinking that it is a joke, but the other person insists that you answer him and when you do he does not believe you.Moreover, he insists that they have supplanted you , that they have replaced you.

It may seem funny to the naked eye, but it is not at all.The suffering for those who suffer from it and the confusion for family members is undoubtedly terrible.Let's look at it in more detail.

Help, a imposter pretends to be my relative!

Capgras syndrome was cradled in recognition of the French psychiatrist who, in 1923, described the first case day Gnosticated with these characteristics. Jean Marie Joseph Capgras I call it simply "L'illusion des sosies" (doubles illusion).In her work she talked about a 74-year-old woman who claimed that her husband She had stopped being her husband.Without knowing very well how, she had been replaced by a stranger.Something really desperate for her, which normally recognized everyone, family and friends, except her husband.

But why does it happen? Why should they suffer such a condition? The specialists explain to us that it could be due to a clear disconnection between the visual recognition system and the emotional memory. If you have a relative with dementia, you will have seen it on occasion.They stop recognizing their closest relatives, confusing them with others.Although in the case of Capgras syndrome, it is something more unusual and particular.

The disconcerting Capgras syndrome

It was in a paper published in 1990 in the British Journal of Psychiatry , when two psychologists, Haydn Ellis and Young Andy, contributed the possibility that patients with Capgras syndrome presented their conscious ability to recognize faces intact, but if that face was very emotionally linked to them and their lives, then there was an activation problem.That is, the more significant a person is for us, the greater the We have to forget it if we suffer from the fearsome Capgras syndrome.

What is really curious is that they not only do not recognize it, but think that they have been "replaced".If you have read Jack's book Finney titled "The Body Snatchers" (or "The thieves of bodies") or have you seen any of the three versions made about this work of science fiction, surely the topic should remind you a lot of this syndrome.

The disconcerting Capgras syndrome

In 1997, one of these two psychologists, Haydn Ellis , presented a new study of the Capgras syndrome, where he described the case of five people.They all suffered from schizophrenia and, indeed, despite to recognize familiar faces, the more intimacy they had with a person, the more they had trouble identifying them, which came to demonstrate once again, the problem of a emotional ctivacion for recognition.

It would therefore be a disconnection between the temporal cortex (where we all recognize faces or objects) and the limbic system, involved in emotions Then, the delirium would come before a deterioration in the reasoning of the person, thinking that, evidently, his relative "has been replaced".

A whole tragedy and in turn, a medical curiosity that is well worth knowing.

The disconcerting Capgras syndrome

If you are a lover of medical peculiarities and also, you are a fan of the acidic Doctor House, do not miss the following article, «Dr House saves a patient in real life »

Image: Richard Jonkman, Racchio, Leland Francisco

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