THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF FREUDIAN "REPRESSION" IN CONVERSION DISORDER

Abstract

Freud proposed that in Conversion disorder (CD), the affect attached to stressful memories is “repressed” and “converted” into physical symptoms. Contemporary neuroscience has shown that the neural correlates for “repression” or memory suppression include dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) cortex activation and hippocampal deactivation. Our objectives were: 1. Test this mechanism in CD and 2. Explore the neural correlates of the associated sensorimotor symptom. Stressful events were elicited from the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule interview in 12 motor CD patients and 13 healthy controls and rated by a blinded panel for their likelihood to cause CD: severely threatening events were categ..