PARAMNESIA: What is it, Causes, Symptoms, Types and Examples

There are memories that we sometimes share with others and it seems that they lived it in an alternate world or remember that event with different eyes or from another angle. But has it ever happened to all of us to remember something that only we can remember to the point of feeling alienated? Paramnesias are related to these characteristics of altered memories, that is why in this Psychology-Online article we share the topic paramnesia: what is it, causes, symptoms, types and examples.

Index

1. What is paramnesia
2. Causes of paramnesia
3. Symptoms of paramnesia
4. Types of paramnesia
5. Paramnesias related to alcoholism
6. Example of paramnesia

The paramnesia is a qualitative memory impairment and is characterized by the experience of delusions as memories. The person suffering from paramnesias experiences false memories that you claim are true and that sometimes they can supplant real situations that are almost impossible to remember.

Paramnesias may have a characteristic of anosognosia: the person is not aware of his symptoms of conspiracy and resists any contradictions that may arise.

Below are the characteristics of the two possible causes of paramnesias:

Organic causes

Most of the cases suggest that the pathology is caused by the malfunction of brain systems involved in memory and the feeling of familiarity. Bonnet (1788) described the first case of paramnesia, however, in contemporary literature it is recognized that it was Arnold Pick (1903) who described the first cases of paramnesias, suggesting as a basis for his explanations that it was a convulsive episode that produced the alteration of the memory.

Current theories follow the lines of these two authors, especially Benson's (1976) theory that suggests that damage to the right hemisphere of those affected it incapacitates them to sustain orientation due to a deterioration in visuospatial perception and their visual memory and damage to the frontal and parietal lobes that make it difficult to inhibit false impressions caused by it disorientation.

This predominant association of lesions in the right cerebral hemisphere, mainly in the frontal lobe (which is responsible for the detection of errors and self-awareness or allopsychic and autopsychic orientation) and to a lesser degree the parietal lobe (which can cause denial of deficits [anosognosia] and an inability to integrate components into a visual scene [simultagnosia]).

We then explain that in these cases the ventral occipitotemporal cortex responsible for the recognition of stimuli associated with known places (home, work, premises facilities in your city, school); thus, the lesion in the frontal lobe disinhibits the occipitotemporal recognition areas, causing a false recognition of places, situations and people that cannot be detected and remains delusional or delusional.

These organic characteristics are also present in the reduplicative paramnesia manifested with the delusional belief that a place has been duplicated and exists simultaneously to the real one or has been transferred or relocated to another place (for example: the hospital where you are admitted and the living place).

Psychopathology

In patients with paramnesias of organic etiology, the symptom of confabulative memory alteration is generally the only psychopathological manifestation. In patients with paramnesias and psychopathological comorbidities or with behavioral changes in their prodromal (initial) phase or prior to memory impairment, they suggest a primary psychiatric etiology.

Studies of a series of paramnesia cases that identify affected brain areas have also been described by Darby et al (2017): the cortex left retrosplenial (Brodmann areas 29 and 30) and the hippocampus that are related to the feeling of familiarity and memory space.

Here you will find more information about the functions and parts of the cerebral cortex.

Below are the symptoms that characterize paramnesias:

• Confabulation of memories (for example: people refer and keep the memory of something that is the product of a delusion and that is sometimes firmly believed by the sufferer).
• Delusional false identification (of one's own identity, situations, objects and places).

exist two types of paramnesias that are distinguished by their type of affectation:

The recognition paramnesias

Among the recognition paramnesias are the following:

• Capgras syndrome.
• Frégoli syndrome.
• Reduplicative Parmnesias.

The paramnesias of memory.

Among the paramnesias of memory are the following:

• Deja vu: is a type of recognition paramnesia, described by Emile Boirac (1917), as a phenomenon of having the assurance that a sensory experience that is lived today has been experienced in the past.
• Jamais vu: This phenomenon refers to when a person has the feeling that is unable to recognize a situation, a place, a word or a person despite others contradicting that rationally it should be familiar or familiar.

In the following article you will see other types of amnesia and their characteristics.

An excessive and / or chronic consumption of alcohol has the consequences of a Thiamine / vitamin B1 deficiency, which can lead to a Korsakoff syndrome, a problem that causes memory impairments characterized by a conspiracy of memories very similar to the symptoms of paramnesias. For example: a person forms stories through close stimuli (images, objects, features of people, animals) connecting them and thus forming a memory that lives as real despite being exposed contrary.

In reduplicative paramnesias, the hospitalized patient refers that she is admitted to the copy of a hospital or assures that there are two identical hospitals. They can also claim to be living in the copy of their home.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Paramnesia: what is it, causes, symptoms, types and examples, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

• Benson, D. F., Gardner, H. and Meadows, J. C. (1976). Reduplicative paramnesia.
• Bonnet, C. (1788; 1992). Description of Cotard’s delusion and reduplicative paramnesia in an elderly patient. British Journal of Psychiatry.
• Darby, R. R., Laganiere, S., Leone, P., Prasad, S. and Fox, M. D. (2017). Finding the imposter: brain connectivity of lesions causing delusional misidentifications. Brain.
• Boirac, E. (1917) L'Avenir des sciences psychiques. Paris. Felix Alcan.