It can occur along with other psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, schizotypal, and neurological disorders. Capgras syndrome should be distinguished from a related class of disorders, prosopagnosia, which is characterized by the inability to recognize people’s faces.
Capgras syndrome is a form of delusional misidentification syndrome (DMS) that can occur in a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders.
It is named after Jean Marie Joseph Capgras (1873–1950). He was a French psychiatrist best known for Capgras Delusion; it was described in a study he published in 1923. Dr. Joseph Capgras and his colleague Jean Reboul-Lachaux first encountered this impressive phenomenon when their patient Madame M. insisted that all her friends, family members, relatives and neighbors had been replaced or constantly misunderstood as impostors.
The syndrome was initially considered a purely psychotic disorder, but today Capgras syndrome is understood as a neurological disorder in which the delusions are primarily due to organic brain lesions or degeneration.
Some patients with Capgras syndrome may deny the identity of the actual spouse and claim that there are two spouses, the real one and the false one.
Capgras syndrome is highly associated with neurodegenerative diseases. In Parkinson's disease, Capgras syndrome usually appears years after the onset of dementia. It has been hypothesized that dopamine deficiency may be associated with the development of Capgras syndrome.
What is capgras syndrome?
