Case Reports of Peduncular Hallucinosis in Patients with Pontine Hemorrhage : Two cases report

ABSTRACT

Peduncular hallucinosis that rarely reported in patients with brain stem lesion has several characteristics. The hallucination tends to be vivid, nonstereotypical images of person or animal. All the patients are aware that the hallucination is not part of reality. One of the suggested mechanisms of peduncular hallucinosis is imbalance among the cholinergic, serotonergic and other transmitting systems in the brain stem. We report two cases with typical features of peduncular hallucinosis which appeared about 30 and 12 months after pontine hemorrhage, respectively. We chose antipsychotics and selective serotonergic reuptake inhibitors for their medications, and their hallucinations disappeared about 2 months and 3 weeks after the medication, respectively. We suggest that peduncular hallucinosis should be considered in the patients with pontine hemorrhage if they complain of typical visual hallucinations.