The term topological model is indebted to the Greek words topos (place) and logos (word, teaching). It was introduced in or shortly before 2005 by the British neuroscientists Dominic H. ffytche and Marco Catani as a generic name for explanatory models that attribute the mediation of hallucinations primarily to a dysfunction of specific brain regions. Some examples of topological models of hallucinatory activity are the " peduncular hallucinosis model, the " brainstem auditory hallucinosis model, and the " entoptic model. The term topological model is used in opposition to "hodological model (which is a generic name for explanatory models that attribute the mediation ofhallucinations primarily to the white-matter pathways between specific brain structures). The hodological and topo-logical models are integrated in the so-called "hodotopic model of hallucinatory activity.
References
ffytche, D.H., Catani, M. (2005). Beyond localization: From hodology to function. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ofLondon Series B Biological Sciences, 360, 767-779.
ffytche, D.H. (2008). The hodology of hallucinations. Cortex, 44, 1067-1083.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.