Cotard Delusion or Walking Corpse Syndrome is an extremely rare mental illness, in which one perceives that they are actually dead, either literally or figuratively. People who become sick with this illness undergo a symptom called delusion of negation, the central symptom of this syndrome. This means that the person usually denies their existence, or their body parts, or portions of their body. Contard’s syndrome usually set on in three stages, the first being symptoms of psychotic depression and hypochondria appear. The second stage, called the blooming stage, is the full development of the syndrome and the delusions of negation, and finally the final chronic stage, where the person continues to have severe delusions and chronic psychiatric depression. Ultimately people with this illness become withdrawn from society and neglect personal hygiene and physical health. They are unable to make sense of or perceive an external reality and in some cases start to show signs of schizophrenia. Neurologically speaking the problem might be related to the neural misfiring in the fusiform face area of the brain, and the amygdalae, which is associated with emotions and face recognition.

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