Aphantasia presenting as Cotard’s syndrome

Abstract

Aphantasia is defined as the absence or marked reduction of conscious, wakeful imagery. Most of the people with aphantasia live normal lives with intact attention, memory, and intelligence. We are presenting a case of acquired aphantasia presenting as Cotard’s syndrome. A 55-year-old woman presented with a long-standing complaint that she had lost her mind. Formal testing showed absence of visual and sensory imagery and poor theory of mind skills. MRI brain showed subcortical and deep cerebral white matter lesions in the bilateral frontal and parietal lobes. This patient raises the question of how a person subjectively knows that he or she has a mind. And how the clinician can understand whether a person is having a subjective experience of mind-the philosophical problem of other minds.