Capgras Syndrome Research Paper

Improved Essays
A staggering amount of people live in the world; however, no human is identical to another. Human beings are the most complex creatures on the earth. A myriad of researchers, scientists, and psychiatrists have been searching for an answer to the complexity of mankind. Eventually, a multitude of clues led them to a reasonable answer: the brain. With that information, they started experimenting on the human brain. Psychiatrists, along with many others, have researched several treatments for mental syndromes and illnesses. Capgras syndrome is when the fusiform gyrus has been damaged. The fusiform gyrus is located in the deep inner surface of the temporal lobe. It is also known as the face area of the brain meaning that people recognize others through this section of the brain (“3 Clues to Understanding the Brain”). A branch of the capgras syndrome is known as capgras delusion. It is when the amygdala is damaged in the brain. …show more content…
However, when they talk to the person on the phone they recognize them. capgras only effects the vision sensory of the brain as well as the emotions. Experts have found a way to test for this syndrome. Doctors measure the galvanic skin response to see how much patients sweat when approached with a certain object opposed to normal people (“3 Clues to Understanding the Brain”).
Phantom limb syndrome is when a person has a limb amputated, but still thinks it is still attached to the body. Doctor Ramachandran has discovered a way to treat people that feel phantom limb. He places a mirror in a box and tells the patient to put the phantom limb on one side and the other on the opposite side. When the patient moves the attached limb in from of the mirror they think their phantom is moving. Eventually, the patient’s brain processes that the phantom is no longer there. When the phantom disappears so does the pain (“3 Clues to Understanding the

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Bethany Hamilton: Shark Attack In 2003, Bethany Hamilton was attacked by a shark while surfing (Zee 7). An amputation was performed on her arm, which in turn, helped save her life (O’Shel 21). Since the attack, Bethany has regained her life and has inspired many others to continue fighting through their own struggles. When an amputation is performed, many people choose to have a prosthetic limb.…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Patients feel these phantom limb pain due to the raw nerve endings in that amputated location. The body is imprinted to recall that lost appendage. Some patients have bone spurs on healed amputations. The physical pain is the body responding to the lost or injured limb. There are medications like Lyrica or Gabapentin to assist in this type of treatment of nerve pain.…

    • 63 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In Marcia Angell’s essay “The Crazy State of Psychiatry”, she writes about the increasing number of people being diagnosed with mental illness and how psychiatrist are dealing with it. In Angell’s paper she claims that the drugs used by psychiatrist, to treat mental illnesses, are less effective than placebos.…

    • 49 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Phantom Limb Pain

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The sensations that may have been experienced before the limb was removed may be experienced to the phantom limb. A new study for Phantom Limb is acupuncture. It has shown to be an effective therapy for people suffering through this pain. Although these studies reported positive outcomes, both were deemed to have a high risk of bias and low methodological quality(Trevelyan).…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cri-du-chat syndrome or cat cry syndrome is a genetic condition. It is a deletion of genetic material in a small arm. People with this condition sometimes has a high-pitched cry that sounds like a cat cry. Most of the time it is not, inherited. “Deletion of the genetic material on the small arm (the p arm) of chromosome 5”.…

    • 221 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Phantom Pains

    • 620 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The visual mistakes had four participants that laid in an fMRI machine and were shown a pixelated image that…

    • 620 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A human’s cognitive ability is unlike any other animal on the earth. Compared to other animals, the human brain possesses more neurons and synapses, tallying eighty-six billion and one hundred fifty trillion respectively. The wiring of the brain and its connections are responsible for human’s superior cognition. Thus, the reason neuroscientists pursue research of neural connections is obvious; neural connections are the fundamental basis of individual expression. Many famous neuroscientists, each with their own twist, are currently working to map the trillions of connections within the brain.…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Phantom Limb Pain Essay

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Phantom limb pain is defined as “pain perceived by the region of the body no longer present” (Subedi & Grossberg, 2011, p.1). This type of pain can be described as “shooting, severe burning, ischemic or crushing in nature or severe from…the limb being in a hyper-extended or unnatural position.” (Chapman, 2010, p. 35). Phantom limb sensation is the “nonpainful sensations experienced in the body part that no longer exist…phantom sensations are touch and pressure-like sensations.”…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    ZAPS Interactive Activity

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The visual system has been shown to be more responsive and is especially sensitive to a special class of objects called faces. Recognition is defined as the ability to recognize different faces from one another in multiple situations. A key component of facial perception is a commonly known condition called prosopagnosia. This term ‘prosopagnosia’ described the condition that limits a person’s ability to recognize the face of others. This condition means that the process of non-facial recognition differs greatly from facial recognition.…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Walking Dead Syndrome Imagine living in a distorted reality; where you aren’t actually aware of being a fully functioning human individual who is alive and breathing. This is what Cotard’s Delusion does to those affected with it. Being an exceptionally rare syndrome, there is not much known about it besides the few individual studies recorded over the years. Cotard’s Delusion is a mental illness where the person who has contracted this syndrome delusionally believes that they’re either already dead, have lost their soul, is rotting alive, doesn’t even exist, or have somehow lost their own internal organs or blood and will soon die. These series of illusions are what make up Cotard’s Syndrome.…

    • 1295 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Thomas Nagel, in ‘Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness’ suggests that if persons are to be explained in terms of minds or consciousness, this might seem to cast doubt on the coherence of the concept of a person. In this sense, the brain bisection data + the psychological theory of personal identity might seem to lead to skepticism about persons. 1 Structure and Function The brain has two cerebral hemispheres, which are connected via the corpus callosum, which can be thought of as an information pathway between the two hemispheres. The two hemispheres are connected differently to the rest of the body.…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Analyzing “Brainology” In the following essay, we will analyze and discuss the article “Brainology” by Carol Dweck. Starting off by the title, the opening paragraphs, the claim, the author’s purpose, methods, persona and closing paragraphs as well. Because I believe Dweck’s article was more effective than ineffective, reasons of why I believe she could've done a better work will be discussed and explained in short. The title the author chooses for this article, “ Brainology”, introduces the audience to what she will be talking about, it is important to point out that the word “brainology’ induces us to think of a very broad topic which could be understood as a study of the brain.…

    • 1253 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chapter 13 of the text, “ Myers Psychology In Everyday Life 3e ”, identifies a spectrum of psychological disorders. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), classifies the psychological disorders and provides treatment suggestions about the disorders. For example, schizophrenia is a term that identifies an individual who has little or inappropriate emotions, bizarre beliefs, disorganized thought processes and withdrawn from social activity. Particularly, when Schizophrenia is acquired as a slow-developing process, the possibility of an active recovery from the person is extremely doubtful.…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Title: Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind Author: Dr. V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee About the author: Dr. V. S. Ramachandran is a professor of neurology and psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and Sandra Blakeslee reports on Science for The New York Times. All about Phantoms The book describes Dr. Ramachandran's experiences with patients who had clinical problems and provides an insight into how the human brain works. Dr. Ramachandran describes fascinating clinical syndromes in his own peculiar style. In this book, he makes an attempt to understand why brain damage can make someone think his parents are impostors, or a woman with a stroke laugh uncontrollably; how a man with a stroke can be unaware that his left side is paralyzed, or why certain types of epileptic patients have intense religious experiences.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There are many models of abnormalities in psychology, including psychodynamic, behavioral, biological, humanistic-existentialism, and cognitive. Some of these approaches to abnormality seem to almost work off of each other’s beliefs. While each of these models of abnormality are unique in their diagnosis, treatment, and general approach to abnormality, the biological and cognitive approaches stand out to me the most and least fitting explanation to what causes abnormalities and how you should go about to treatment. Of the many models of abnormalities in psychology, the biological approach is the best fit for explaining abnormality because it is based on medical research. Biological theorists believe abnormality is caused from a problem that can be found within the brain anatomy or chemistry (Comer, R. J.).…

    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays