14 From a neurobiological perspective, the phenomenal space is divided into two broad regions (left and right of the dotted vertical plane in Figure 2). The predominant brain activation associated with experiences to the left of the figure (perceived externally) lies within find more specialized visual areas. In contrast, the predominant brain activation associated with experiences to the right of the figure (in the mind’s eye) lies within frontal and parietal regions. Thus, a veridical percept of motion,56 an illusion of motion,63 and an afterimage of motion66 are all linked to activity

Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical within motion-specialized cortex. In contrast, imagery of motion involves predominantly frontal activations.73 Synesthetic visual experience has also been linked to activity within specialized visual cortex,67 although it is not clear whether this is the case for both projectors and associators. Figure 2. The neurophenomenological Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical classification of visual perceptual experience. A three-dimensional space is represented with axes:

(i) perceptual locus – external or in the mind’s eye; (ii) sense of agency or volitional control; (iii) vividness (also coded … Emerging visual perceptual syndromes The various Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical visual phenomena illustrated in Figure 2 are classified within our current psychiatric and philosophical taxonomies as distinct entities, differences between them based on their relation to external objects and to insight, with little attention paid to their content. Thus, a face hallucination is considered a distinct class Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of experience from a face illusion in a cloud formation, but not from the hallucination

of a landscape. Yet, viewed from a neurophenomenological perspective, the same perceptual experiences are Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical classified in an entirely different way. Here, the face illusion and hallucination are considered to be closely related, both involving the same cortical area, but are distinct from the landscape hallucination which involves a different area. In the neurophenomenological classification, the content of perceptual experience becomes of central importance while traditional distinctions between illusions and hallucinations are STK38 de-emphasized. This is not to say that veridical percepts, illusions, and hallucinations of a given visual attribute are identical in terms of the underlying neural circuitry within a specialized area. However, it is clear is that these traditionally distinct experiences are more closely related than previously suspected. The neurophenomenological perspective undermines key shifts in emphasis in the approach to visual hallucinations and their syndromes instituted in 1936. In neurobiological terms, visual hallucinations are not unitary phenomena, different contents pointing to different cortical loci, and are not distinct from illusions.