[2] In 1880, the neurologist and psychiatrist Jules Cotard described the condition as le délire des négations ("the delusion of negation"), a psychiatric syndrome of varied severity.

[9][10] The article Betwixt Life and Death: Case Studies of the Cotard Delusion (1996) describes a contemporary case of Cotard's syndrome which occurred in a Scotsman whose brain was damaged in a motorcycle accident: [The patient's] symptoms occurred in the context of more general feelings of unreality and [of] being dead.

His mental health history showed themes of death, chronic sadness, decreased physical activity in leisure time, social withdrawal, and problematic biological functions.

As such, the Cotard's syndrome patient presents a greater incidence of brain atrophy—especially of the median frontal lobe—than do people in control groups.

[18] Cotard's syndrome also has resulted from a patient's adverse physiological response to a drug (e.g., acyclovir) and to its prodrug precursor (e.g., valaciclovir).

[19] As such, the patient with weak kidneys (impaired renal function) continued risking the occurrence of delusional symptoms despite the reduction of the dose of acyclovir.

Although his family had made arrangements for him to travel abroad, he continued to experience significant persistent visual difficulties, which provoked a referral for ophthalmological assessment.

For several months after the initial trauma, WI continued to experience difficulty recognizing familiar faces, places, and objects.

He developed an obsession with death shortly after (hence his stage name and use of corpse paint),[25] often self-harmed onstage and among friends, and became increasingly depressed and introverted[26] eventually resulting in his suicide in 1991.

In season one, episode 10, of the NBC television series Hannibal, protagonist Will Graham trails a serial killer with Cotard's syndrome.

In season four, episode 14, of the TV series Scrubs, a patient who is said to have Cotard's syndrome believes that he died years earlier.