Hyperreligiosity
Hyperreligiosity
Hyperreligiosity is a neurobehavioral symptom, manifest as sudden religious conversion, or increased and unswerving orthodoxy in devotion to religious rituals. It may be encountered along with hypergraphia and hyposexuality as a feature of Geschwind’s syndrome. It has also been observed in some patients with frontotemporal dementia; the finding is cross-cultural, having been described in Christians, Moslems, and Sikhs. In the context of refractory epilepsy, it has been associated with reduced volume of the right hippocampus, but not right amygdala.
References
Benson DF. The Geschwind syndrome. Advances in Neurology 1991;
55: 411-421
Wuerfel J, Krishnamoorthy ES, Brown RJ et al. Religiosity is associated with hippocampal but not amygdala volumes in patients with refractory epilepsy. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry2004; 75: 640-642
Cross References
