Blurring the person you love
Neuroscientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have mapped the brain injuries — or lesions — that result in delusional misidentification syndromes, rare disorders that leave patients convinced people and places aren’t really as they seem. In a study published in the journal Brain, a team led by Beth Israel neurologist and Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Michael D. Fox reveals the neuroanatomy underlying these syndromes for the first time. “How the brain generates complex symptoms like this has long been a mystery,” said Fox, director of the Laboratory for Brain Network Imaging and Modulation and associate director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation. “We showed how complex symptoms can emerge based on brain connectivity. With a lesion in exactly the right place, you can disrupt the brain’s familiarity detector and reality monitor simultaneously, resulting in bizarre delusions. Understanding where these symptoms come from is an important step toward treating...