Also known as reversal of vision metamorphopsia. The term inverted vision comes from the Latin words inverto (to turn around, to change) and visio (seeing). It is used to denote a rare visual phenomenon in which objects of fixation, and sometimes the entire extracorporeal environment, are perceived as if rotated (commonly around 90°, sometimes 180°). The British physician and alienist Forbes Benignus Winslow (1810-1874) has been credited with having described the first case of inverted vision in 1868, in an individual he had diagnosed with hysteria. Since then, just over 30 cases have been reported in the literature. Inverted vision is perceived mainly in the coronal plane, but it can also be perceived in the sagittal or transverse plane. The phenomenon tends to be transient, sudden, and paroxysmal in nature, with a duration of the order of several hours, occasionally days or weeks. It tends to be accompanied by vertigo, nausea, and vomiting. The neurobiological correlates of inverted vision are largely unclear. The condition has been reported predominantly in individuals with occipito-parietal lesions that spare the optic radiations, and in association with brain-stem pathology. Etiologically, it is associated with a variety of conditions, including head trauma, neoplasms, stroke, and vertebrobasilar transient ischemic attack. Inverted vision is classified as a " metamorphopsia. It should not be confused with " visual allachaesthesia, which consists of a " visual illusion in which objects present in one hemifield are perceived as if present in the opposite hemifield.
References
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