SHORT-LASTING SUDDEN
EPISODES OF GREEN COLOURATION OF THE WHOLE VISUAL FIELD, EVEN PERSISTENT SIX
MONTHS AFTER A CRANIAL TRAUMA.
Renato COCCHI, a neurologist and a medical
psychologist.
Summary.
In a right-handed woman of 59 years, with
a university degree, following an occipital cranial trauma without loss of
conscience, short-lasting episodes of green colouration of the whole visual
field appeared, that are repeating even six months after from the trauma. The
phenomenon is of ictal type, and it has links with the stress. This had
attributed to a trouble of half-brain dominance in an exact zone of the
occipital cortex, where is the elaborating of the colour stimuli and/or their
opposites have their processing. An interpretation as "epileptic
equivalents" has done.
Key words: Red, green, opposite colours,
cranial trauma, stress, PTSD, green colouration, visual field, ictal-type phenomenon,
GABA, glutamate, epilepsy.
Theoretical and research bases.
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As a researcher hopes it occurs, it happened
to me. To have started to deal with an investigation field, the relationship
between the colour Red and the colour Green in half-brains. Then I shaw
arriving, unexpected, the clinical case that confirmed the correctness of some
hypotheses.
I would wish not that one could think I am
attributing to myself nonexistent retroactive worth. In the first page of this
site there is a drawing of two half-brains, one red to the left, and the green
one to the right. The page has been posted on Internet on 28 January 2000.
First I have seen this case on March 2004, eight days later after a cranial
trauma. For what I could check, it doesn't exist in literature the description
of a similar case.
The case.
F, of 59 years, a psychologist and an expert
graphologist of the courts. Married, with two sons by now adults.
The patient had an incident on 14 March
2004, about 2pm, because the house elevator did not come perfectly to the floor
level. Since she did not mind the stair and did not foresee it, she beat the
occipital region of the skull, the right knee, and even the right shoulder,
elbow and wrist. At the emergency room of the town hospital the physicians
described her as collaborative, conscious but slowed, well oriented as for the
time and the space. Her eyes' pupils were isochoric, isocyclic, both reacting
to the light. No other focal neurologic sign reported. They attributed her a
score of 15 at the Glasgow scale. She affirmed there to have a headache.
CAT of the brain and CAT of the cervical
rachis resulted negatively. Nothing was in relief in the right wrist and in the
right knees.
Being Sent to the neurosurgery unit for
observation, in her enter she was sleepy and with head ache. A further brain
CAT, with a contrast medium, resulted negatively. Even another CAT to the
cervical rachis resulted negatively.
She left the hospital on 16.03.2004, with
improved head ache. During her staying there she did not get an EEG
examination.
22 March 2004. A neuropsychiatric
examination eight days after skull trauma, in outpatients'. It results that
after the casualty, while she was resting to bed home, she had a conscience
loss lasting 3-5 minutes. This fact drove her familiars to bring her to the
emergency room, and from here to the neurosurgery unit, where she rested three
days with drowsiness, asthenia and head ache. She reported that the mornings
after the admission she had the feeling of green field of vision, either with
her eye closed or just open.
At home, during the last five days, she
noticed problems of linguistic confusion (First she did not understand what
speaking meant), and a continued tendency to fall asleep. Nuchal head ache
persisted, not due to cervical arthrosis, more intense towards evening. She
does difficulties to maintain as structured the temporal coordinates. Now she
is feeling a little dulled, with short-term memory's troubles, difficulty to
recall the usual telephone numbers, well remembered before the trauma.
Unjustified feelings of fear occur.
Now she is easy to cry for no reason.
Bulimic hunger runs, both for sweet things and salted ones. Her bowel function
did not change, but she needs to urinate very frequently, being the maximum
interval of two hours. Dyslalias increased. Now she partly lost her ability to
write with the computer but no dyslexic troubles occurred. Currently she has a
deficit of concentration. She has the impression of having her head stuffed
with wadding ("full of cotton wool "). She affirms of having got a
hearing decrease [?]. Moreover, she said of having lost her ability, always
had, to gather immediately the "critical point". While she was a very
active woman, now has become abulic. No emergency of bad thoughts or
inexplicable bad feelings referred.
I asked at once an EEG examination,
performed on 01 April 2004, which conclusion were "light bioelectric
asynchronous bitemporal alterations, without any specific significance".
To the end I diagnosed PTSD, and I
prescribed an antidepressant and antistress drug therapy, which lasted for two
months.
04 September 2004: The second neurologic
checkup.
She woke up the day after in the morning in
the neurosurgery unit, in spite of being affirmed that she was alert, during
the transport to the hospital. She does not remember it, like all what happened
from the trauma in then [probable foregoing amnesia]. When she had her eyes
open, she noticed a sectorial vision ( she was seeing only in front of her,
with a very reduced angle of vision) and with a whole general tonality. She
reported this fact to the department physicians, who did not make anything of
this symptom.
Currently she still has:
- The green vision, lasting several seconds,
mainly after having observed of something red, more to diurnal light that to
artificial light (A symptom already reported in the hospital). It occurs with
nearly daily frequency, also several times in a day, mainly after prolonged
attention (measurement of the graphemes, pressing elaboration of writing a
judicial examination, observation to the microscope) and generic tiredness.
- Asthenia;
- A headache, starting from the nuchal
region with diffusion till the frontal, orbital and temporal areas, with
feeling of heat rash too.
- Memory difficulty in the mental operation
of choosing within the lexicon ( difficulty to find at once the right word).
- Contemporary oversweating in the zone under
the nose, in the armpits, and in the hands'palms.
- Impelling need of emptying the bladder.
- Fits of dizziness, with light disbandments
(already reported in the hospital).
- Hyperacusia and discomfort when several
persons speak together (already reported in the hospital);
- Feeling of a bitter and dry mouth.
- Tactile feeling of rough, even when she is
touching a smooth surface.
- Visual feeling of rocking of the ground,
which doesn't correspond to the tactile and kinaesthetic information during
walking (already reported in the hospital).
The objective neurologic examination did not
show anything of remarkable.
Discussion.
The outcomes of the cranial trauma are
creditable to two separate phenomena.
The near totality of the symptoms reported
is due to the PTSD, with memory troubles, headache, vagal and
parasympathicotonic reactions, perception troubles by the hearing, the taste,
the touch, and the sense of the equilibrium.
Such troubles are still present about six
months after the trauma, and they reappear or they are increased exactly in
conditions of physical or mental stress, mainly during the professional
activity.
The appearance of the "green
vision" has a different origin, which can have a link to an episodic
inversion of half-brain dominance, at least in the visual cortex.
To production of this symptom competes:
- the primarily occipital trauma, and then
in the areas elaborating the visual perceptions (visual cortex);
- one inducing stimulus (often an object of
red colour that, in the opposite half-brain is eleborated with the
complementary colour, the opposite one, that is the green, but even the stress
in general);
- a missing suppression of the opposite
engram (the green colour) that becomes prominent and "colours", for
projection, the whole visual perceptive field.
This eventuality, differently from the PTSD,
is very few known. On fact perhaps I am the only ne who currently have personal
research, published, from at least 10 years (see: <www.reversebrain.net>.
Red and green are two complementary colours,
opposite even in the graphic scheme of the primary colours and they first
compounds. In the brain, on the contemporary presence of the opposite, in
relationship to every perceptive stimulus, it exists a famous
neuropsychological experiment never explained in satisfactory way.
If a person intensely watches at a red
surface for some minutes, then moves at once the look on a white surface, for a
fraction of a second he sees the green colour ( the green is the complementary
that is to say the opposite of the red).
If we assume the point of view of the
contemporary presence of the opposite as true, we may suppose that the dominant
half-brain sees correctly the red.
The not dominant half-brain would perceive
the red stimulus as green, but this phenomenon habitually is cancelled. If we
move our eyes on the white (which corresponds to no colour), the dominant
half-brain adapts at once.
That not dominant one, which is slow er in
the elaboration of the stimuli, lets us perceiving for a fraction of a second
its residual image (the colour green). This becomes as belonging to the
secondary surface, the white one, while it is still the product of the opposite
of the stimulus due to the colour of the red surface (Cocchi, 1994).
Incidentally, I wish I remember that already
the Greek pre-Christian philosophy with Anaximander of Miletus and mainly
Heraclitus of Ephesus, individualized the problem of the opposite. (Di Luciano,
2003).
Has this behaviour of opposition between the
two half-brains some experimental or psychopathologic base, which can confirm
it?
The starting point can offer by the
neurology. In subjects who had brain insults, often in the ictus form, but even
as results of accidental traumas or neurosurgical operations, mirror actions
can appear: Mirror writing and/or mirror reading (Critchley 1928 and 1953;
Paradowski and Ginzburg, 1971; Streifler and Hofman, 1976; Fisher, Liberman and
Shankweiler, 1978; Heilman, Howell, Valenstein and she/he/it/you rotates, 1980;
Feinberg and Jones, 1985). Mirror speaking too, the first case of which,
following neurosurgery of the brain, was described by Cocchi, 1986.
We are dealing with persons who did never
show similar features, before the brain insult. An explanation was given,
moreover supported even by experimental data in the animal (Orton, 1928, Noble,
1968, Bradshaw, Nettleton and Patterson, 1973 ). "Perceptive stimuli
(usually visual ones) produce contemporarily, in the two half-brains, an engram
and its opposite " but the opposite is normally cancelled. In particular
conditions, this mechanism of suppression becomes inhibited, for which the
opposite may appear with a mirror image, the phenomenon mostly known.
Not only writing, or reading and speaking can
get a mirror behaviour, but even the manipulation of objects can be made in the
opposite way (Feinberg and Jones, 1985). There is not any reason to believe,
then, that the phenomenon is specific of the visual perception.
Feinberg and Jones, 1985, suggested that the
right-left orientation is not a unitary characteristic, and it may have links
to a differential activation of the half-brains, as for acting motor tasks or
other tasks. (Cocchi, 1994).
The very emotional subjects (who often
coincide with the "neurotic" persons) can have a hyperfunction of
areas or structures or functions of the not dominant half-brain. Otherwise they
can have an inhibition of the dominant half-brain, in particular on the
suppression mechanism of the opposite engram.
To this intention I report here a test I
habitually use. If we ask very emotional persons to answer at once, without
thinking on, to this question ( Which is the opposite of the colour Red?), not
fewer of them answer: Green. When we ask them to explain the reason of this
response, they do not know why they said it. True depressed people reply
usually: Black (that is instead the opposite of white )(Cocchi, 1994).
The application of this simple test in two
groups of Ss brought the results here summarized.
A group of heroin and cocaine addicts (43
Ss) presented highly significant statistic prevalence (p = .0009) of the answer
"Green" to the test "Which is the opposite of the colour
Red?" as compared to a group of normal persons (61 Ss).
This result confirms that this abuse
matters, like the alcohol, can act on the dominant half-brain at least for
reducing the suppression mechanism that avoids the clear emergency of the
opposite engram of the not-dominant half-brain during any perception (Cocchi,
2002).
The analysis of the answers to the test
"test "Which is the opposite of the colour Red?" given by 325 Ss
seen in an outpatient's clinic between 1992 and 2002, found 148 opposite
answers (45.54%). Of them, 68/148 (45.94%) had the answer of Green (the opposite
of the colour Red) and 80/148 (54.06%) with the answer of White (the opposite
of colour Black, habitually answered by depressed people).
I did not find again statistically
meaningful differences as for gender, while the answer of White came out in a
higher statistically significant age. As for the first consultation, I did not
observe statistically meaningful differences as for gender and motivation. The
same did happen for symptoms or secondarily remarkable particulars driving to
the final diagnosis, or other information.
For what concerns the investigation on the
opposite answers, some opposite behaviour or feelings were found in the 50% of
those people that answered White, but even in several who answered Green. In
six subjects out of the 80 who answered White, I could not discover opposite
behaviour or feelings, which denies a total correlation between the answer
White and opposite behaviour or feelings (Cocchi, 2003).
In this patient I may try an aetiological
explanation. The cranial trauma was in her occipital zone. The phenomenon is of
visual type, then with a link with the occipital cortex. The phenomenon is of
ictal type, it happened even with eyes shut, for which it is possible that in
the occipital cortex there is bioelectrical instability.
If this instability is to the left side, it
would act by temporarily inhibiting the suppression mechanism of the opposite
engram, for which the occipital cortex of the right half-brain would have a
temporary relative prevalence.
If instead it is in the right side,
the bioelectrical instability elicits an excitation that overcomes temporarily
the suppressive mechanism of the opposite engram, with temporary absolute
prevalence. It is not possible to detect which of the two half-brains alters
for first.
A causal event remembered by the patient is
the relationship with the stress.
As a such, it could act by reducing the type
A GABAergic inhibition, with contemporary increasing of the type B GABAergic
inhibition, retroactive inhibition of the the GAD ( decarboxylase of the
glutamic acid) activity and reduction of the transformation of the glutamate
into GABA (Cocchi, Patrucco, Zerbi, 1987 ). The relationship between glutamate
and GABA is primarily involved in epilepsy, which has the stress as switching
factor. The phenomenon reported by patient could be an "epileptic
equivalent".
Finally it is to remember the
"bewilder" assertion of the patient, who says that this phenomenon
decreases with the artificial light. At once one thinks about the frequency of
the alternate electric power in Italy, that is 50 Hz per second. Could have a
role the fifty episodes of lighting and turning off every second, not visible
by the naked eye for the flicker fusion? It is difficult to go over this first
relationship, if it had a maining.
Conclusion.
Following an occipital cranial trauma, wery
short episodes of green coloration of the whole field of vision appeared, which
continue to repeated after 6 months from the trauma. The phenomenon, that is a
ictal type, and linked to the stress, was attributed to a trouble of half-brain
dominance in an exact zone of the occipital cortex, where the colour stimuli
and/or the thei opposite are eleborated. The more probable interpretation is
that of a " epileptic equivalent ".
References.
Bradshaw J.L., Nettleton N.C., Patterson K.:
Identification of mirror-reversed and non-reversed profiles in same and
opposite visual fields. J. Exp. Psychol. 1973, 99: 42-48.
Cocchi R.: Defective hemispheric dominance
and cognitive behaviour: Speculative considerations. lt. J. lntellect. lmpair.
1994, 7: 19-27. (testo italiano in <www.reversebrain.net/Domin1-it.htm>
Cocchi R, Il test "Dimmi il contrario
del Rosso" in tossicodipendenti e in persone normali. Gennaio 2002, in
< www.reversebrain.net/domin5-it.htm>
Cocchi R. Il test "Qual è il contrario
del colore Rosso" in 325 pazienti ambulatoriali. Gennaio 2003, in <
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Posted on Internet on 24 November 2004. Copyright by Renato Cocchi, 2004.
42100 Reggio Emilia (Italy).
renatococchi@libero.it
Theoretical and research bases.
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