hodotopic model of hallucinatory activity

   The term hodotopic model is indebted to the Greek words hodos (path) and topos (place). It was introduced in or shortly before 2005 by the British neuroscientists Dominic H. ffytche and Marco Catani as the name of an explanatory model that attributes the mediation of hallucinations to "hodological as well as "topological activity, i.e. to the aberrant activity of specific brain regions and of the white-matter connections between those brain regions. The hodotopic model is based on the notion that the perceptual system is organized as a network of connections linking multiple CNS structures, and that it is virtually impossible to single out a specific structure or CNS function as 'the' source of hallucinatory activity. And yet the model assumes that specific structures can be earmarked as being of primary interest for the mediation of certain types of hallucination, and that activity increases affecting those regions (i.e. topological activity increases) may be accompanied by complex and dynamic hodological changes (i.e. changes in the connecting white-matter tracts). According to ffytche, the hodotopic framework may be considered an elaboration of the disconnection paradigm as proposed by the American behavioural neurologist Norman Geschwind (1926-1984).

   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.