Friday, June 25, 2010

Anosognosia

Five-Part Series from New York Times
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/anosognosia/

"Wheeler had walked into two Pittsburgh banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight. What made the case peculiar is that he made no visible attempt at disguise. The surveillance tapes were key to his arrest. There he is with a gun, standing in front of a teller demanding money. Yet, when arrested, Wheeler was completely disbelieving. “But I wore the juice,” he said. Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras."

“A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his bellican,
He can take in his beak, enough food for a week,
I wonder how in the hell-he-can.”
- Woodrow Wilson

"I left the room, waited for a few minutes, then I went back to the room and said, “Can you use your right arm?” She said, “Yes.” Then I grabbed her left arm and raised it towards her nose and I said, “Whose arm is this?” She said, “That’s my mother’s arm.” Again, typical, right? And I said, “Well, if that’s your mother’s arm, where’s your mother?” And she looks around, completely perplexed, and she said, “Well, she’s hiding under the table.” So this sort of confabulatory thing is very common, but it’s just a very striking manifestation of it. No normal person would dream of making up a story like that. But here is the best part. I said, “Please touch your nose with your left hand.” She immediately takes her right hand, goes and reaches for the left hand, raising it, passively raising it, right? Using it as a tool to touch my nose or touch her nose. What does this imply? She claims her left arm is not paralyzed, right? Why does she spontaneously reach for it and grab her left arm with her right hand and take her left hand to her nose? That means she knows it is paralyzed at some level. Is that clear?"


This is just crazy interesting.

No comments: