Small claims caught: A beginner’s guide to Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

While researching a blog on Cotard Syndrome I came across a case study of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome published by Dr. Eric Bui and his colleagues published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. They wrote:

“A 74-year-old retired French executive was admitted to hospital for major depressive disorder with psychotic features triggered by prostate surgery 3 months previously…The patient was described by his wife as usually sociable, jolly, scrupulous and a perfectionist. On admission, the patient presented with a depressed mood, loss of pleasure and interest, disordered sleeping, severe fatigue, loss of appetite, psychomotor retardation, and persecutory (being broken into and burgled) as well as somatic (his stools being contaminated) delusions…Ten days after admission, the patient exhibited new delusional symptoms: he believed his hands and feet were shorter than usual and was convinced that his clothes had shrunk. Organic causes (intracranial tumor and infection, thyroid disease, and nutritional deficiency) were ruled out by physiological, laboratory, neurological, and ophthalmological investigations…The patient continued to be delusional and severely depressed…He was discharged on day 45 of hospitalization with complete remission”.

As can be probably be surmised from this brief case study, Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) is a non-contagious disorientation disorder and refers to when a person’s sense of body image, vision, hearing, touch, space, and/or time are distorted. AIWS sufferers typically experience micropsia (a neurological condition that affects human visual perception in which objects are perceived to be smaller than they actually are and make people feel bigger than they are) or macropsia (a neurological condition that affects human visual perception in which objects are perceived to be larger than they actually are and makes people feel smaller than they actually are). They may also experience feelings of paranoia.

AIWS has nothing to do with a malfunctioning of the eyes, but is a change in how the world is perceived with those suffering seeing objects the wrong shape or size. Arguably the most disturbing symptom for sufferers is the perceived alteration of their body image. AIWS sufferers become confused about the size and shape of their body (or specific body parts). Time perception may also be affected with many sufferers reporting that time seems to pass incredibly slowly as if they were on an LSD trip. Sufferers (most commonly thought to be children and migraine sufferers) often become very frightened, scared and panic-stricken, although it can often be treated successfully through complete rest and relaxation (and in most cases is a relatively temporary condition). Some research appears to indicate that AIWS can be due to abnormal amounts of electrical activity that causes blood to flow abnormally in the brain areas that process texture and visual perception.

AIWS was named after the 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, but is also known as Todd Syndrome named after the psychiatrist who first wrote about the condition in a 1955 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. (Interestingly, a short article by Dr. Klaus Podoll and Dr. Derek Robinson in The Lancet from 1999 highlighted that Carroll was a migraine sufferer and that his book may have been inspired by his own personal experiences!). Todd’s original paper reported five patients (of which four were female) all of who suffered from severe migraines. All of these patients described their body, body parts and/or objects around them changing in size (with two of them also having time disorientation too). On the basis of these five cases, Todd coined the term ‘Alice in Wonderland Syndrome’ (although such hallucinations had been noted three years prior to this by Dr. C.W. Lippman in a 1952 paper on “certain hallucinations peculiar to migraine”).

The condition has also been associated with other medical conditions besides migraines, including (mononucleosis) infections, and severe depression, and (in extreme cases) brain tumours. A paper by Dr. Nabil Kitchener in a 2004 issue of the International Journal of Child Neuropsychiatry also noted that AIWS can also be the presenting manifestations in some patients with epilepsy, hyperpyrexia (i.e., extremely elevated body temperatures), typhoid encephalopathy, and other psychiatric disorders. In a 2005 paper in the journal European Neurology, Dr. Valmantas Budrys also reported that AWS could occur in hypnagogic, delirious states, encephalitis, cerebral lesions, drug intoxication, and schizophrenia.

In a literature review on organic depersonalization in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, Dr. Michelle Lambert and her colleagues examined the literature on AIWS. The noted that since Todd’s case studies were published, the subsequent published case reports of body image distortion associated with AIWS, often included depersonalization and/or derealization. They suggested that such symptom were consistent with parietal lobe pathology. More specifically, they argued that the frequent accompanying symptoms of fear, anxiety, and panic implicate the role of the temporal lobe. Dr. Kitchener’s 2004 paper also concludes that AIWS manifestations are due to disturbed function of either medial temporal, hippocampal, tempro-occipital or tempro-parieto-occipital regions of the brain based on the research of Dr. Kuo and colleagues published in a 1998 study in the Pediatric Neurology journal.

However, the case study published by Dr. Bui and his colleagues that I began this blog suggested that AIWS may be similar to Cotard Syndrome (CS). As the authors noted, that:

“Cotard Syndrome comprises any one of a series of delusions ranging from the belief that one has lost organs to the conviction that one is dead. Since Cotard’s syndrome is also usually associated with severe depression and improves rapidly with ECT [electro-convulsive therapy], it is possible that the somatic delusions experienced by our [AIWS] patient were a variant of this syndrome. According to our observations, the psychotic features of major depressive disorder might present in the form of Alice in Wonderland syndrome although the relationship between this syndrome and Cotard’s syndrome remains to be determined”.

Depending upon co-morbid conditions, medical treatments include beta blockers, anti-depressants, and anti-convulsants, AIWS has also been reported in both the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal (1987) and British Journal of Ophthalmology (1992) as one of the early signs of the Epstein-Barr Virus, one of the most common human viruses and of the herpes family. Most commonly it causes glandular fever but is associated with various forms of cancer including Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Chronic AIWS is untreatable and time is the only healer. Sharing experiences with other sufferers is also thought to be therapeutically beneficial (although I know of no clinical support for the claim).

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Budrys, V. (2005). Neurological eponyms derived from literature and visual art. European Neurology, 53, 171-178.

Bui, E., Chatagner, A. & Schmitt, L. (2010). Alice in Wonderland Syndrome in major depressive disorder. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 22, 352.e16-352.e16.

Cinbis, M. & Aysun, S. (1992). Alice in Wonderland syndrome as an initial manifestation of Epstein-Barr virus infection (case report). British Journal of Ophthalmology, 76, 316.

Eshel, G.M., Eyov, A., & Lahat, E., et al (1987). Alice in Wonderland syndrome, a manifestation of acute Epstein-Barr virus infection (brief report). Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal, 6, 68.

Kew, J., Wright, A., & Halligan, P.W. (1998). Somesthetic aura: The experience of “Alice in Wonderland”. The Lancet, 351, 1934.

Kitchener, N. (2004). Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. International Journal of Child Neuropsychiatry, 1, 107-112.

Kuo, Y, Chiu, N.C., Shen, E.Y., Ho, C.S., Wu, M.C. (1998). Cerebral perfusion in children with “Alice in Wonderland” syndrome. Pediatric Neurology, 19, 105-108.

Lahat, E., Eshel, G., & Arlazoroff A (1990). “Alice in Wonderland” syndrome and infectious mononucleosis in children (letter). Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 53, 1104.

Lambert, M.V., Sierra, M., Phillips, M.L. & David, A.S. The spectrum of organic depersonalization: A review plus four new cases. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 14, 141-154.

Lippman, C.W. (1952). Certain hallucinations peculiar to migraine. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 116, 346-351.

Podoll, K., Ebel, H., Robinson, D., & Nicola, U. (2002). Obligatory and facultative symptoms of the Alice in wonderland syndrome. Minerva Medicine, 93, 287-293.

Podoll, K. & Robinson, D. (1999). Lewis Carroll’s migraine experiences. The Lancet, 353, 1366.

Rolak, L.A. (1991). Literary neurologic syndromes. Alice in Wonderland. Archives of Neurology, 48, 649–651.

Todd, J. (1955). The syndrome of Alice in Wonderland. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 73, 701–704.