Towards a neural network based therapy for hallucinatory disorders.

ABSTRACT

Pattern completion in a neural network model of the thalamus and a biologically plausible model of synaptic plasticity are the key concepts used in this paper for analyzing some cognitive disorders that involve hallucinations of several kinds visual hallucinations in the Charles Bonnet syndrome and psychedelic drugs consumption, somatic hallucination in phantom limbs, cognitive hallucinations in schizophrenia and even in multiple personality disorders. All these types of hallucinations are proposed to be the result of a pattern completion dynamics performed in thalamic deafferented areas. Effective treatments of some of these disorders involve peripheral stimulation jointly with a central inhibition so that the neural circuits generating the disorders are depressed according to the proposed model of synaptic plasticity.