Science News Review

It’s Deja Vu All Over Again!

Jan 30 at 11:11pm by Aileen

Deep Brain Stimulation in Hypothalamus Triggers Deja Vu in Patient

A Neuroscience team in Canada tried an experimental treatment for a patient with morbid obesity a variety of treatments failed to control. They were stimulating potential appetite suppressing sites in his brain’s hypothalamus via implanted electrodes when he suddenly had a strong feeling of deja vu.

The ‘live’ memory recurred under double-blind restimulation. An arched bundle of fibers in the hypothalamus called the fornix was shown to drive temporal lobe and hippocampus activity, important parts of the brain’s memory circuitry.

This is a fascinating article, a sure eye-catcher for any of us who have ever experienced a strong sense of deja vu. Yet what it describes doesn’t sound much like deja vu to me, per my own experience and the general understanding of the phenomenon among most people I know.

Deja vu isn’t a dim memory that suddenly presents itself “as if” we’re there right now. It’s the sudden realization that what’s happening right now is something we’ve experienced before. I’ve had it so strongly that I knew what people were going to say and do before they said and did it!

So I have to wonder if perhaps the neuroscientists don’t have a clear understanding of the phenomenon, or the patient didn’t know the difference between reliving an old memory and remembering the present, or the writer of the press release didn’t know what the term refers to. I’m leaning toward the last possibility, since the actual quotations of the researchers speak of memory, not deja vu. Yet another terminology confusion in the science press, but definitely an interesting finding!