Functional Neurological Disorder, Predictive Processing and Active Inference

Functional Neurological Disorder was previously called Conversion Disorder or psychogenic neurological symptoms and is a condition in which a patient develops any number of neurological symptoms (such as loss of ability to move or seizure like episodes or inability to feel parts of their body or phantom pain) that cannot be explained by a clear lesion in the nervous system.  It was called conversion disorder because it was previously thought that repressed emotions or desires had been converted into neurological symptoms as a defense against those emotions or desires.  Therefore, the symptoms were "psychogenic" instead of neurological or biological.  Even though emotional states contribute to neurological function, we now know that this model is incorrect.  The most compelling new models of functional neurological symptoms come from the theories of the Bayesian brain, predictive processing, and active inference.

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