In every fantasy novel or movie, lycanthropy is the supernatural transformation of a person into a wolf, usually during the full moon. Similarly, clinical lycanthropy involves a delusion that the affected individual either can transform into, has transformed into, or is a non-human animal; this shouldn’t be confused, however, with werewolf syndrome (the affliction that causes an abnormal amount of hair all over the body).
The first notes about this neurological condition stretch all the way back to the second century; an Alexandrian physician named Paulus Aegineta originally attributed it to an excess of black bile, or melancholy. This theory was reinforced in 1563, when Lutheran physician Johann Weyer wrote that these patients suffered from an imbalance of melancholy and exhibited symptoms such as pale skin, dehydration, and “sunken” and “dim” eyes. Lycanthropy wasn’t even contributed to demonic behavior by King James in his 1597 treatise Daemonologie; he instead supported the idea an excess of melancholy was what caused people to imitate the behavior of animals. It wasn’t linked to a neurological deficit until much later on.
The most prominent symptom is obviously the delusion that an individual is in the process of transforming into an animal (or has already turned into an animal). This delusion has been linked to the altered states of mind that accompany psychosis, which is a mental state that bends reality and normally involves delusions and hallucinations, since the transformation only occurs in the mind and behavior of the affected individual. Patients have reported moments of lucidity: they have looked back and remembered that they have felt like an animal. In most cases, the patient will behave in a way that resembles animal behavior, e.g. howling, growling, or crawling.
Clinical lycanthropy has been seen as a cultural manifestation of schizophrenia due to the first four symptomatic criteria:
- Delusions: Again, the person believes that he or she is has turned into an animal
- Hallucinations: The person has vivid hallucinations of being an animal or having whatever traits that animal has, such as claws, fur, or fangs
- Disorganized Speech: People often take on the sounds of the animal that they have “turned into” (someone that believes they have turned into a werewolf they begin to howl at the moon or sometimes during the day).
- Grossly Disorganized Behavior: People who believe they have turned into a werewolf, for example, often live outside and adopt the diet of a wolf)
Although human to wolf is the most common delusion associated with this disease, there have been others reported. There have been cases of transformations into a hyena, cat, horse, bird, or tiger. One case study conducted in 1989 an individual reported a serial transformation that began with a change from human to dog, and then to horse, and finally to cat, before returning to the reality of human existence after treatment.
This is an extremely rare condition, and is considered to be a combination of a psychotic episodes caused by some other condition, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or clinical depression. However, neurological conditions and cultural influences have also been suggested as causes of the human-animal transformation delusion. One of these neurological causes is the changes in parts of the brain that are involved in representing body shape, as one neuroimaging study shows: two people diagnosed with the disease showed that those areas displayed unusual activation, which suggests that when people report their bodies are changing shape, they are genuinely perceiving those feelings.
Treatments for this disorder usually include antidepressants, antipsychotics, or other drugs that have been proven to reduce delusions and hallucinations.