Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: How Capgras Syndrome Works

Episode Date: June 8, 2019

There is an extremely rare condition where the sufferer is convinced that everyone around him is an impostor posing as their friends and family. Learn about the neurology behind this strange and sad mental disorder in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello everyone, it's me, your friend Josh. And for this week's SYS Case Selects, I've chosen our episode on copgras, or copgras. We never actually really figure it out in this episode, Syndrome.

It's about an astoundingly interesting mental disorder where a person believes the people in their life have been replaced by imposters. And this episode contains the dorkiest line I've ever uttered, yes, wow indeed, enjoy. Welcome to Step You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark. I'm pretty sure the person with me is always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Capgrass beaver. Yeah, I think it's copgras. Because it's a Frenchman who was the first person to describe it. Jerry just called it crapgrass.

I know, we're all kind of screwed up. Yeah. And I'm not gonna say copgras the whole time, so we'll just say capgrass. That's obnoxious. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, like we're not in Quebec. That's right. Or Quebec.

Right. This is basically our invasion of the body snatchers. Yeah, episode. Podcast. Yeah. That unless we do one on the invasion of the body snatchers. Well, it's kind of the deal, though. We're talking today about a very, very strange

and once thought to be very uncommon and rare disorder, a delusional disorder, a delusional misidentification disorder to be specific, where the sufferer believes that the people in his or her life, people very close to him, have all been replaced by imposters. That they're like, I'm looking at you right now, Chuck, and you look just like Chuck,

and you're doing a great job with the voice and everything, but I don't wanna say it, and I don't wanna look you in the eye, but you're obviously not Chuck, and what's going on? I think we all feel that about each other occasionally. But imagine that all the time. Yeah. Like how would you just not lose faith

in the reality of anything if you thought, first of all, how are people, how are they coming up with great imposters like this? Sure. Who is they? Yeah. Why are they doing this? Why you?

Is it just you or is the whole world? Impostors. Yeah, it's like there's a lot of really weighty questions involved with this, and as a result, science has been trying to really figure out the mystery behind it and has failed thus far. Yeah, and we already should say it's not only difficult on the person,

but it's difficult on the person being misidentified as well. Sure. And you really don't hear a lot about that. I read a bunch of articles on this, and only one said, and don't forget, if your wife thinks that you're an imposter, it's really tough on you as well. Sure, yeah.

That is kinda overlooked. Yeah, very much so. Yeah, so this is actually kind of a newish phenomenon as far as description goes. Yeah. 1923, Dr. Kopkra and Dr. Rebul La Show described Madame M, who believed that she had as many as 80 husbands, all of them looking the same.

Right. But they were all imposters, and she never could get close to them because eventually they would just kinda leave and be replaced by a new one, and she was utterly convinced of this. And I'm sure at the time they thought, boy, this lady's just nuts.

But then the more people did research, the more they found, and I couldn't find any good stats on how rare it is. I got it. I heard thousands, and that means nothing. So the one I saw, it was in 2006 or five, I believe. The estimate was between 1.3 to 4.1% of all psychiatric patients have Kopkra.

And you can probably say that if that's close, then that's probably close to the general population because if you believe that the people who are closest to you in your life are imposters, and you're accusing them of such, they're probably gonna force you to go seek psychiatric help. So that would probably be a pretty close statistic

for society at large. And where you really see it, though, is in Alzheimer's patients. The statistic was between two and 30% of Alzheimer's patients possibly suffer from Kopkra, or crabgrass. Yeah, but isn't that just Alzheimer's? No, not necessarily.

Alzheimer's, you know, that can be forgetfulness. That can be disorientation. This is like, you're accusing your husband, your wife, your son, your daughter of being somebody else, somebody posing as them. Right, okay, that makes sense. So this is different than something, we've covered face blindness before, right?

We talked about it came up in something else. But yeah, maybe we did do a whole podcast on it. I'm not sure, but that is prosopragnosia. And this is not prosopragnosia. That's when you can see a face over and over and over, and still you just don't know who it is. Right. In this case, you know, like, hey, that's Josh.

I'm looking at him, I know that face. But they've done studies with skin conductance. This is when they, they're basically measuring the amount of perspiration on your face. Right, which is a measure of the limbic system being active, which is in turn a measure of your emotions going off. Yeah, with the idea being that if you're sweating

a little bit on the face, then that is a physiological or psychological cue that like, hey, look at this picture of your mother. I will recognize that as my mother, and maybe my face will sweat a little bit. Right, if you are what's called a normal participant, if you have pro-pagnosia, you will not recognize that picture intellectually,

consciously, but your skin conductivity will go off. So that means that the emotional cue is still triggered, even though you don't know who you're looking at. That's the opposite of studies of Capgras syndrome. Yeah, they'll see a picture and they will not have, it's basically like they're looking at a picture of a complete stranger. Right, and they don't have the,

yeah, they don't have that emotional response. Even though they recognize the face. Right, exactly. But they don't have an emotional response. Here's the thing, they recognize the face enough to know this is my dad. They are rational enough, that's the other thing too. Other than this, they're rational.

It's what's called a monothematic syndrome where you have one delusion and it's a whopper and it basically consumes your whole life. So they're rational otherwise and they're rational enough to say, okay, this is my dad I'm looking at, but I don't feel any kind of emotional stimulation from seeing my dad and I should. And because I don't, this is an imposter.

That's what they think is going on. Yeah, one of the common things that people with this syndrome will say is that their soul is gone or their soul is missing. That's a different syndrome. No, no, no, that's linked to Capgras because they'll recognize them. Oh, the other person?

Yeah. Okay. The person they're looking at is that's not my mother. That's not, I would sense my mother's soul. Right, so what they think then is that when we, this kind of proves that we make memories two ways that are connected. That we take in stimuli, right?

Like visual stimuli, I'm looking at you. And at the same time, I'm looking at Chuck and I like Chuck. So I'm also kind of taking note that same memory that I'm forming of the visual representation of you also has an attendant emotion, happiness, I like you. So when I see you again, I should feel that same thing, happiness. Oh, I'm glad to see Chuck.

That is a full memory. With Capgras, people who suffer that, they're missing the emotional aspect and they have the recognition. And the VS Ramashan drawn, I think I said his name, right? He came up in the Mirror Neurons episode. It's just this brilliant genius dude. You see San Diego.

Yeah. Go Aztecs, maybe. I think so. He said, probably what's happening then is you have a secondary lesion or secondary damage where your right brain is very analytical and it checks your left brain, which wants to explain everything away.

And if that right brain analysis is damaged, then the left brain can go to whatever links it wants to, to explain away strange phenomenon. In this case, if you have that disconnect between the sensory input and the emotional aspect of a memory, in conjunction with a loss of the right brain checking your delusions, then the left brain is able to go off and say,

oh, well, it must be an imposter. Yeah, well, the emotional side wins out, essentially, as an explanation to sort of reconcile those two things. Yeah, because it's missing, it's not deluded. The person is not delusional, there's an imposter. Yeah, you know what's really weird is another one of the characteristics sometimes is it can extend to animals and objects as well.

Yeah. So it's not always just people that can, that's my dog, but it's not. I know that chair is not the original chair. Someone came in here and replaced it with an exact replica. And they're not hallucinating, you know, they're aware of all this stuff. Yeah, and I mean, imagine the paranoia

that that would generate in you. Yeah. Like who moved the chair? Who replaced this chair? What's the deal? And they found that it is comorbid with things like Alzheimer's and schizophrenia as well and other psychotic disorders.

Yeah, and it's usually your spouse too. One article I read said it's always your spouse is how it starts. Oh, yeah? Yeah, but I don't know if that's quite right. That seems a little willy-nilly to say every single time it starts with your spouse. Stuff you should know.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy.

You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

So let's talk about some of the explanations that science has come up with. Since it was first described in 1923, it was right in Freud's wheelhouse. Oh, yes. So the psychoanalysts had their, had the first crack at it and they swung and missed. They basically said that it was a repressed

edifice or electro complex, right? Yeah, and that was kind of poo-pooed pretty quickly. They were saying that you're just trying to resolve guilt about your circumstances, identifying your parent as they look alike, and then pretty quickly, scientists that probably doesn't have to do with repressed feelings in this case. Right.

Done. Done. And Freud took his wallet and went home. Yeah, he's really been kicked to the curb. Has he? Yeah. Even by psychology, they've turned their backs on him. Yeah.

Yeah. Psychodynamic approach. Oh, and I'm sorry, Freudians. Oh. That was a psychodynamic approach, and that's, like we said, has kind of been poo-pooed. Well, the psychodynamic approach was the one where it's repressed feelings.

Oh, right, right. The Freudian approach was that you wanted to have sex with your mom, so you resolved the guilt from that by saying, you're not my mom. You're not my mom. You're an imposter, so. But I want to have sex with you. And that's OK.

I mean, the Glenn Miller version of the mood. And I feel really guilty. That's cool. Again, we should say that one was thrown out. A lot of researchers think that it's a result of an actual organic cause, something physically wrong with the brain, which makes sense to me. They look for lesions, cerebral dysfunction,

signs of atrophy. And like you mentioned, it is also co-morbid a lot of time with psychotic disorders, epilepsy, even Alzheimer's. And you mentioned schizophrenia, which makes sense. I think bipolar is on there as well. So other doctors say, you know what? It might be a combination of these things,

like physical and cognitive causes. Yeah, like you have some sort of organic damage, but then mentally you're rationalizing it inappropriately. Like you can't accept that you're delusional because of any sort of brain damage. You're projecting everyone else is an imposter. So that would be a combination of mental and physical. And again, it's your brain trying

to explain something that doesn't quite add up in your head. Yeah. So what's clear is there's a breakdown in communication. There is. Somewhere in the brain, Rameshandran and his partner, I don't want to just call out the star, but Hurstine and Rameshandran did a paper in 97. That was pretty interesting.

They consider it a problem of memory management. We're in like, you or I, if our brain is to be, if it's a computer, like it is a computer, right? Sure. When we see somebody or meet somebody, we create a file on that person. And then when we encounter that person again, we access the same file and then add to it.

But it's the same file. What Rameshandran and Hurstine were proposing was that people who have copcra make a new file every time for the same person. But there has to be some sort of link between these files. I don't think that's necessarily an app description. I think there are more onto it with it's just missing. It's the same file.

It's just missing something that the patient senses is missing. There's a void there. And they're saying, well, I'm missing something. It's because you're an imposter and I don't really know you. It's some sort of emotional identification marker. This is really interesting to me. They have studies that showed that blind people, it can actually extend to their voice of the person.

But other times, they've shown that they recognize them on the phone, but not in person. Yeah, that was a dude named DS that Rameshandran. It can be both? His was the only modality is what they call it for. His delusion was visual. So when he saw his parents, his dad was not his dad. And actually, his dad was pretty cool.

His dad one day, DS was a 30-year-old Brazilian guy who got into a car accident and started suffering Capgras syndrome. And his parents started to get really worried, didn't know what to do. So his dad one day came in and declared that the man who had been replacing him as an imposter, he had sent him away to China and he would never return.

Hey, that's pretty smart. I'm your father and I'm back. And it worked for a couple of weeks and then it just went back. The guy became convinced that now the imposter is back. He had Capgras syndrome so bad that he came to believe that he himself was an imposter. Wow.

And he asked his mother when the real DS returns, will you still love me and treat me as your friend? Can I still stay around? And she said, I don't know who you are. So this guy thought everything, including himself, was an imposter. He thought there were two Panama's that he'd been to recently,

thought there were two United States. Wow. There were doubles for everything. And when he talked to his parents on the phone though, that he didn't suffer that delusion. It was strictly visual. Would he say things like, dad, there's this other guy here pretending to be you.

Yeah, no, he was very open about it. Oh, I don't know. He didn't hide it from what I understand. Interesting. Which is something that's probably healthy if you have Capgras syndrome because there have been instances of violence with Capgras syndrome.

Yeah, this one guy thought a robot had replaced his father so he decapitated his father to look for the robot inside. A woman in a mental institution killed another patient because she thought that she was gonna kill her double, her daughter's double. So she was actually protecting the imposter from somebody who she didn't necessarily think

was an imposter. That is very interesting. So as far as treating this, since it's pretty rare, there's not a lot of prescribed regular treatments. Sometimes it goes away. Does it really? Yeah, sometimes if it's like a physical brain trauma,

that you can reestablish that connection and things start firing correctly again, and it just kind of disappears. I wonder when you come out of it, Chuck. Like, do you feel like, wow, that was really crazy what I used to think, or do you feel like all the imposters have left in all of my families back now?

Oh, I don't know. That's weird. Yeah. Another thing that they say, if it's linked to a mental disorder, sometimes it can be helped by medication that would also help that mental disorder. But they're really, for most people,

there is no treatment, and there is no cure. I think it's just probably a long series of sessions on the couch, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, but I mean, how do you forge trust that's, you know, in somebody, when you, which is required. Yeah. To say, okay, it's me.

Everyone's not imposters, I have a false belief. When ultimately, the closer you get to say, like, you're a therapist, the more likely you are to come to believe that they're going to be replaced by an imposter. Yeah. This is a SAG condition. Yeah.

So let's talk about some other SAG conditions, too, that are similar. I mean, it's a delusional misidentification syndrome. It also falls under the umbrella of reduplicative para-amnesia. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's a mouthful. So another similar one is the Frigoli system,

and it was named after Leopoldo Frigoli. He was a quick change artist, and that leads you to believe that people around you are people in disguise. So not replacements, but hey, I know that you should be my dentist, but you're really my sister in disguise as my dentist. Yeah, it's like over-recognition.

Yeah. Like everyone in your life that you see and interact with on a daily basis, like your dentist or somebody on a subway or whatever, is actually somebody very close to you, dressed up in disguise. Cotard syndrome? Yeah.

That is a belief that you are missing body parts, or you are emotionally dead, and sometimes they think like my heart doesn't beat, or I don't have bones. Or I don't exist any longer. Yeah, and it's not, I mean, these are people that really feel this way. It's pretty much like the psychological manifestation

of an existential crisis. Yeah. Like you think your brain is rotting inside of you, and like you're dead, I mean, you don't feel anything. What about intermittent morphosis? This one's odd. It's kind of like, it's kind of like copgrass syndrome, but it's more complete, and it's not imposters,

it's people close to you switching. Right. Like just your brother's now your father. Psychologically and physically, the whole ball of wax. Like apparently you see them, like when you're interacting with your father, you see and think you're interacting with your brother if they've switched.

Wow. Yes, wow indeed. The thing about this though, and you kind of get this from the Ramachandran paper, which I strongly recommend reading. It's only like nine pages. It's pretty interesting stuff, is every once in a while he pulls back and is like,

can you eff him, believe the brain? Yeah. It is incredible what it can do, and when it malfunctions, man can it ever malfunction. But he's pointing out that like through these really, really rare cases, you can start to get a glimpse into how we form memories and how we retrieve memories,

and to better understand human consciousness through these very unique and unusual patients. Yeah, I'd like to think at the end of our run, in 50 years, we're gonna have a nice body of work on the brain for people to pick and choose, and from like alien hand to cap-crawl to how memories are formed and how you taste. Myths on the brain?

Yeah, it's just pretty amazing stuff. How do you taste, it tastes delicious. It's our, I think it's probably our favorite topic. Did you just say 50 years? Yeah, man. Hey, I got one for you, have you seen The Imposter? Yeah. I think I talked about it before too.

That's good documentary. Good documentary, go check that one out. Yeah. And you got anything else on cap-crawl? No, sir. Okay. Cap-crawl, crabgrass, capgrass, coup de gras, butter, all of those things.

Type them into the search bar, howstuffworks.com, and it may or may not bring up this article, at least a couple of them will. And since I said search bar, let's take a message break. Stuff you should know. Go. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Hey, that's me.

Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with a Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Stuff you should know. And now, listen to me. Yes, buddy, I'm going to call this one email

from a former Mormon, former Mormon. Hey, guys, and Jerry, I was listening to the podcast on marriage. I want to give you some information on Mormon marriage, though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints no longer practices nor supports the secular act of marrying multiple spouses. Men can still be sealed to multiple women.

And I'll try and explain sealing to you, but even though I was raised a member of the church, the details are a little bit fuzzy, because he's been out for a little while. Though sealing is related to marriage and takes place at the same time, it is a separate ordinance where marriage ensures that a couple receives all the legal benefits promised

by the government. Sealing ensures all of the religious benefits promised by the Lord. That was a good preacher. Thank you. The two main benefits that I can remember are, one, the sealed persons will be together for all time and eternity.

And two, the sealed persons will enter into the highest level of heaven of the three. That's just three levels. Oh, OK. I found out a man can be sealed to multiple women when my parents went through their divorce. Even though they went through the legal process of divorce, they never had their sealing nullified.

When my dad remarried, he was sealed to my stepmother and to my biological mother at the same time. Later on, when my mom remarried, she had to nullify her sealing to my father, because women are not allowed to be sealed to multiple men, only men to multiple women. Furthermore, my new stepfather was sealed to his late wife when he married my mother

and he still is to this day. That's a lot of stuff. My intentions aren't to bash the church in any way, but the fact that men can be sealed to multiple women is a little-known fact that most people inside and outside the church. Though the church's practice of polygamy doesn't bother me anymore, educated consenting adults

should be allowed to be with the ones they love, in my opinion. And that's his opinion. I am bothered by the fact that they don't inform people of their policy on being sealed to multiple spouses. That's all I've got, guys, on Mormons of Marriage. No longer a member of the church, but I still find the religion and culture very fascinating.

A podcast on how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints works would be amazing. And that is from Ethan Clark. Thanks, Ethan. Ethan Clark, my long-lost brother. And we've been asked by many Mormons and members of that church to do one on their religion. We have a whole queue of ones that we have to do.

That's kind of piling up. It's like before we hit the 50-year mark. It's just like one after the other, the never-ending cycle. We will add it to the cycle, the never-ending cycle, starring at Trey U. If you want to suggest a podcast and accompany it with a story or some outsider, former insider analysis, we want to hear it. You can tweet to us at SYSKpodcast.

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visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart

radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.