High Altitude Psychosis: A New Medical Entity?

Cross-posted at Cognition and Evolution.

A new paper breaks down cases of acute mountain sickness into several categories, including isolated psychosis with no evidence of cerebral edema (a quarter of cases!) Psychosis was more associated with accidents than the other subgroups, not surprising in retrospect. These cases were all taken from above 3500m/11,700'. It's always interesting that humans, and life on Earth generally, can tolerate some amazing extremes, but when the partial pressure of O2 drops a little bit, everything breaks.

Hüfner K, Brugger H, Kuster E, Dünsser F, Stawinoga AE, Turner R, Tomazin I, Sperner-Unterweger B. Isolated psychosis during exposure to very high and extreme altitude – characterisation of a new medical entity. Psychol Med. 2017 Dec 5:1-8. doi: 10.1017/S0033291717003397