A Belgian woman who believed she was a chicken for a day could have been demonstrating a rare mental condition linked to depression, psychiatrists say.
Researchers from KU, Leuven, a Belgian university, wrote in the Tijdschrift voor Pyschiatrie medical journal that the 54-year-old unnamed woman had a history of major depressive disorder and reported experiencing depression-like-symptoms for two months, before finally being found by her brother in her garden clucking and crowing like a rooster.
She visited the emergency department where she was described by researchers as sweating, shaking, blowing her cheeks out and attempting to crow. She also described feeling new sensations in her legs.
However, after suffering a seizure, the woman’s memory returned and researchers stated that she remembered little of the episode, but felt embarrassed.
She was suffering from clinical zoanthropy, researchers explained, a rare disorder in which a person is convinced that they have turned into an animal. A mere 56 cases have been reported between 1850 and 2012, with researchers saying this could be because of how difficult it is for a person with the disorder to explain their thoughts.
Patients have reported believing they have turned into a wide range of animals, such as a dog, a lion, a tiger, a hyena, a shark, a crocodile, a frog, a cat, a goose, a rhinoceros, a rabbit, a horse, a snake, a bird, a wild boar, a gerbil and a bee. Symptoms can last one hour to several decades, researchers added, and they seem more likely to develop in people who live in rural and non-industrial areas.
The researchers linked zoanthropy to underlying disorders such as schizophrenia, psychotic depression and bipolar mood disorder. “This delusion can occur with an underlying psychiatric disorder, but it can also be secondary to structural or functional disorders of the brain,” they wrote.
The woman had, at the time of the incident, been married for 20 years and worked as a pharmacy employee. Several of her siblings have recurring depression and sleep issues, and the woman reported suffering from depression after the death of a family member and structural changes at work in which she received negative feedback for her performance.
According to the study, the woman was observed for several weeks in a psychiatric ward and treated accordingly before being discharged. A year later, she returned to work.
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