A New scientific model maps the visual hallucinations and mental health read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1374-a-new-scientific-model-maps-the-visual-hallucinations-and-mental-health

The mystery of visual hallucinations, sometimes even in otherwise healthy individuals with no history of mental disorder, is still one of the big challenges within the field of mental health.

But, new research out of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia developing a scientific model that maps how these visual hallucinations come about has long been a challenge because scientists don't even fully understand where they come from, let alone the brain changes responsible for their true-to-life manifestations.

A single, common link behind hallucinations has been largely indiscernible.
But for the very first time, researchers have come up with a model that they believe could eventually lead to improvements in the way mental health patients are treated, including those with varying forms of dementia who experience hallucinations as a routine part of their symptoms.

Researchers explains, a new visual technique that works across the board to induce hallucinations in nearly everyone, revealing a specific area of the brain known as the visual cortex that processes visual information where hallucinations begin.

Using a flickering white light against a black backdrop, the UNSW team was able to cause a group of healthy volunteers to experience the exact same visual hallucination the appearance of gray blobs moving around a circle which allowed them to trace back the precise brain processes that resulted in this uniform experience.

They know that alterations to the visual cortex are at the root of these hallucinations, and the next step is to investigate how this new found understanding can improve treatment in psychiatric patients.

Associate professor Joel Pearson from UNSW's School of Psychology says, we have known for more than 100 years that flickering light can cause almost anyone to experience a hallucination. However, the unpredictability, complexity, and personal nature of these hallucinations make them difficult to measure scientifically.

 

Findings could evaluate the mysteriously hallucinogenic experience from an ophthalmological perspective, revealing more about why they occur in patients with eye disease. But this is the first study to show why they occur generally, a landmark discovery that could help many a psychiatric patient find relief.