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NEUROLOGY 1990;40:444
© 1990 American Academy of Neurology

Spontaneous visual phenomena with visual loss

104 patients with lesions of retinal and neural afferent pathways Frederick E. Lepore, MD

Department of Neurology, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, N.J.

Fifty-seven percent of 104 consecutive patients with retinal or neural visual loss reported spontaneous visual phenomena (SVP). Elementary SVP occurred more commonly (51% of patients) than complex SVP (21%). SVP occur with lesions of any portion of the visual pathways. Unlike irritative hallucinations, they do not aid in localization of the lesion. SVP occur significantly more frequently with visual acuity of 20/50 or less in both eyes. These purely visual hallucinations are unlikely to herald psychiatric disease and may be release phenomena stemming from loss of inhibitory visual input.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Frederick E. Lepore, Department of Neurology, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Robert. Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0019

Presented in part at the 41st annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Chicago, IL, April 1989.

Received July 25,1989. Accepted for publication in final form August 22,1989.

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