However, de Morsier’s classification Is perhaps most remembered for one syndrome, mentioned In passing, that sparked a 70-year controversy. Table I. de Morsier’s classification of visual hallucinatory syndromes. Table II. Visual hallucinatory syndromes not CP-690550 mw included by de Morsier. LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide; MDMA, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine; PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder The Charles Bonnet Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical syndrome De Morsier included a brief mention of a syndrome Inferred from reports In the literature. Charles

Bonnet’s description of the visual hallucinations experienced by his 89-year-old grandfather Charles Lullin (see ref 14 for detailed account) had been largely overlooked in the early 20th century visual hallucination literature. However, the account was well known to de Morsier through accidents of birth and Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical geography. His mother

was related to Theodore Flournoy and Edouard Calparède, cousins themselves and founding editors of the Archives of Psychology, Flournoy had inaugurated the first issue with a commentary and transcript of Lullin’s original Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical observations that survived in the collections of a surgeon,16 and in 1909 an autobiographical report of the 92-year-old philosopher Ernest Naville’s visual hallucinations were published in the same journal.17 Bonnet, Lullin, Naville, Flournoy, and the Archives of Psychology were all linked to Geneva – then, and for the remainder Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of his life, de Morsier’s home. Basing his syndrome on these published accounts, he argued that visual hallucinations could occur in the absence of cognitive Impairment In the elderly, a syndrome he referred

to as the Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS). For de Morsier, CBS Implied a localized neurodegeneration and contrasted Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the association of visual hallucinations and dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Pick’s disease. Although he did not specify the site of the theoretical neurodegenerative lesion, he later revealed his suspicion that it involved the paravisual sphere,18 the pulvino-cortical connections he had linked to visual hallucinations in 1935. The ocular theory Although de Morsier was unable to confirm his neurodegenerative hypothesis, he was next certain of one thing: CBS had nothing to do with eye disease. For him the fact that Charles Lullin had impaired vision was no more than a coincidence of the fact that eye problems were common in the elderly. His position was to influence developments in the field for the next 70 years, and had its roots in a debate that had taken place the previous decade in the ophthalmological literature.