

However, funding for this type of research is currently very limited and is largely being self-funded by individuals with self-assessed visual snow syndrome. Additional visual snow syndrome research studies are currently underway in London and Munich. In addition, because visual snow syndrome is largely unknown in the medical community, patients are often misdiagnosed as having migraine with aura, hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), psychogenic disorders or malingering. There is currently no known treatment for visual snow syndrome. In essence, visual snow syndrome could be to the visual system what tinnitus is to the auditory system. suggest that visual snow syndrome may result from “cerebral hypersensitivity” to physiological phenomena. The predictive-coding model, which is a Bayesian-prediction model of sensory processing, suggests a common underlying mechanism between tinnitus and other positive perceptual disorders. Īdditional hypotheses have also been suggested for how visual snow syndrome and tinnitus may be related. Coincidentally, of the 32 visual snow syndrome patients involved in this study, 63% reported tinnitus. A connection that has been previously hypothesized between tinnitus and TCD as well. This study suggests that visual snow syndrome may be related to other sensory processing disorders, like tinnitus, via a common pathophysiological mechanism. The study demonstrated that color filters, primarily in the blueyellow spectrum, subjectively reduced symptoms in 92% of 12 patients who participated in a colorimetry test. They proposed that an imbalance between the konio- and parvo/magnocellular pathway underlies the thalamocortical dysrhythmia. proposed that visual snow syndrome may be a thalamocortical dysrhythmia of the visual pathway specifically, a thalamocortical dysrhythmia secondary to dysfunctional neuronal excitability and impaired habituation response. Of these patients, 64% reported continuous bilateral tinnitus. In addition, this second study expanded the previous telephone survey to 120 patients with confirmed visual snow. Using functional brainimaging techniques (positron emission tomography), this study detected areas of increased metabolic activity in the right lingual gyrus and the anterior lobe of the left cerebellum of 17 patients with visual snow, compared to healthy control subjects. , provided the first empirical evidence that visual snow syndrome was an objectively measurable disorder. However, in addition to visual symptoms, 62% of the 78 phone-interview patients with confirmed visual snow also reported continuous bilateral non-pulsatile tinnitus.Īn additional study by Schankin et al. The cluster of visual symptoms includes palinopsia (seeing afterimages), entopic phenomena (excessive floaters, blue-field entoptic phenomena, spontaneous photopsia), photophobia (sensitivity to bright light), and nyctalopia (impaired night vision). was the first attempt to systematically identify additional symptoms commonly found with visual snow. This study demonstrated that visual snow syndrome was a unique disorder distinct from migraine and typical migraine with aura. attempted to characterize the disorder using a chart review of 22 patients with visual snow, an internet survey of 275 self-assessed visualsnow subjects, and a phone interview with an additional 142 patients. While most of these symptoms appear to be visual in nature, 62-64% of patients studied also report continuous bilateral tinnitus. Visual Snow Syndrome is a cluster of symptoms found highly prevalent in patients that present with visual snow2. Werewolf syndrome body.Visual Snow is a symptom described as the continuous perception of tiny flickering dots in the entire field of vision, similar to static of an analog television1.
