I cannot picture it in my mind: acquired aphantasia after autologous stem cell transplantation for multiple myeloma

Adam L Bumgardner; Kyle Yuan; Alden V Chiu

doi:10.1093/omcr/omab019

I cannot picture it in my mind: acquired aphantasia after autologous stem cell transplantation for multiple myeloma

Oxf Med Case Reports. 2021 May 24;2021(5):omab019. doi: 10.1093/omcr/omab019. eCollection 2021 May.

Authors

Adam L Bumgardner¹, Kyle Yuan², Alden V Chiu^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Internal Medicine and Psychiatry Residency Program, National Capital Consortium, Bethesda, MD, USA.
² F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA.
³ Hematology-Oncology Service, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, USA.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA.

Abstract

Aphantasia, the loss of mental imagery, is a rare disorder and even more infrequent when acquired. No previous cases have been identified that were caused by transplant-related treatment. We describe a case of acquired aphantasia in a 62-year-old male with refractory IgG kappa multiple myeloma after receiving an autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) following high-dose melphalan with a complicated hospital admission. The etiology of aphantasia remains unidentified, but we provide viable explanations to include direct effects from ASCT treatment and indirect effects from transplant-related complications.

Published by Oxford University Press 2021.

Publication types

Case Reports