Behavioural Neurology

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bn/

List of Papers (Total 3,756)

Editorial

Psychiatry and the Necker Cube. Neurological and Psychological Conceptions of Psychiatric Disorder

Neurological and psychological conceptions of psychiatric disorder are in conflict at the present time. This conflict is considered in the context of the history of psychiatry and the philosophy of science. Its practical consequences are considered for the motor disorder of schizophrenia, the cognitive impairment in psychiatric illnesses, the use of the terms organic and...

Some Personality Variables in Functional Neurological Disorders

Patients with spasmodic torticollis, writer's cramp and the Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome (GTS) were given rating scales to assess personality dimensions, especially hostility and obsessionality. The data have been compared with age and sex matched controls. Significant differences arose, especially for hostility for the GTS and writer's cramp patients, whereas those with...

Tardive Dystonia: Clinical Spectrum and Novel Manifestations

Tardive dystonia was identified in 25 patients: involvement of the face and neck was most common; truncal and limb dystonia were also observed. There were 3 cases of laryngospasm and 2 of spasmodic dysphonia. The latter has not been previously reported as a manifestation of tardive dystonia. In all cases, movements typical of classic tardive dyskinesia could be demonstrated. This...

Patterns of Neglect Dissociation

Extinction in the visual, tactile and auditory modality, and visual, tactile and motor neglect were investigated in 40 right brain-damaged (RBD) and 50 left brain-damaged (LBD) patients. The presence of neglect was assessed with reference to the performance of 50 control patients. Visual neglect was only found in RBD patients and its severity could vary from one test to another...

Alcoholism, Korsakoff’s Syndrome and the Frontal Lobes

A subset of the diffuse cerebral changes and psychometric deficits found in chronic alcoholics is similar to that seen in the frontal lobe syndrome. Certain features of alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome (AKS) also point to cortical involvement, and this may have a basis in alcohol neurotoxicity. Twenty-five patients with AKS and 24 non-Korsakoff alcoholic controls were compared...

Clock-Drawing in Neurological Disorders

Clock-drawing is a widely used bedside test of constructional ability, but it has never been systematically studied or standardized. We examined 87 clocks drawn by neurologically impaired patients and age-matched controls, and propose a set of criteria for scoring clocks. Patients with probable Alzheimer's disease and other dementias have gross impairments in clock-drawing. These...

Body Image Disorders: Comparison between Unilateral Hemisphere Damage and Schizophrenia

The records of a consecutive series of 100 schizophrenics were examined for any mention of body image disorders. These were present in 45 patients, the most common varieties being anomalous bodily experiences. The pattern of these was then compared with the sorts of body image disorders which occur in patients with left hemisphere lesions and in those with right hemisphere...

Conversion “V” Profiles in Torticollis

The assumption that spasmodic torticollis represents a conversion reaction was examined by evaluating profiles of 61 patients on the hypochondriasis, depression, and hysteria scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Thirty-six per cent of the sample had normal profiles. A conversion “V” profile with scores above 70 was found in a minority (9%) of the patients...

The Psychopathology of Basal Ganglia Calcification

Basal ganglia calcification (BGC) was found in 36 of 4122 patients undergoing computed tomography as part of a clinical investigation of their psychiatric illness. The prevalence of BGC increased with age in both men and women. No psychiatric diagnosis was specifically associated with BGC although calcification of the putamen and the caudate was only found in patients with...

Language, Culture and the Neurobiology of Pain: A Theoretical Exploration

Language and culture, as conceptualized in traditional anthropology, may have an important influence on pain and brain-behavior relations. The paradigm case for the influence of language and culture on perception and cognition is stipulated in the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis which has been applied to phenomena “external” to the individual. In this paper, the paradigm is applied to...

Pharmacokinetics of Anti-Epileptic Drugs and their Clinical Significance

The serum concentration achieved and maintained following the administration of a fixed drug dosage is a direct consequence of the interactions of a wide variety of interrelated processes, including drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion, and the physiological status of the patient. These interrelationships are reviewed with specific reference to the major anti...

Trends in Anti-Epileptic Drug Development

Several avenues are being explored in the development of new anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs). For a number of years efforts have been directed towards compounds which may augment neuronal inhibition, and these efforts have resulted in the development of several valuable drugs. More recently, increased attention has been focused on the role which excitatory transmitters may play in...

Metabolic Characteristics of Oxcarbazepine (®Trileptal) and their Beneficial Implications for Enzyme Induction and Drug Interactions

Hepatic oxygenases of the cytochrome P-450 family play a major role in the clearance of various anti-epileptic drugs. These enzymes are susceptible both to induction and to inhibition. Phenytoin, carbamazepine (CBZ), primidone, and phenobarbitone, for instance, are potent enzyme inducers. Other drugs, such as chloramphenicol, propoxyphene, verapamil, and viloxazine, inhibit...

Oxcarbazepine in Monotherapy

Altogether 235 patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy were randomly allocated to treatment with either oxcarbazepine (OXC) or carbamazepine (CBZ) in a double-blind multicentre trial. After a titration phase of 4–8 weeks the optimum individual dose of trial medication was determined and treatment with this dose was continued for another 48 weeks. The results of the study indicate...

Varieties of Pathological Self-Mutilation

Pathological self-mutilation appears as a non-specific symptom as well as a specific syndrome. Since psychotic persons may commit horrifying acts, such as enucleation of an eye or amputation of a body part, identification of high risk patients is crucial. Stereotypical self-mutilation, such as head banging and biting off of fingertips, is associated with mental retardation and...

Cerebellar Structures and the Programming of Movement Sequences

Two patients with unilateral damage to the medial and lateral cerebellum were examined to determine whether local structures in the cerebellum are used to execute programmed movement sequences. Both patients performed a sequential tapping task which required the execution of either a single keystroke or of a sequence of three keystrokes. Movements executed with the contralateral...

The Categorical Organization of Semantic and Lexical Knowledge in the Brain

In recent years several papers have shown that different verbal and non-verbal semantic categories can be selectively disrupted by brain damage and that consistent anatomical localizations correspond to each category-specific semantic disorder. This paper aims to suggest that the brain regions typically damaged in a given type of category-specific semantic disorder might be...

Convulsive Pseudoseizures: A Review of Current Concepts

Convulsive pseudoseizures thought to represent psychiatric disease can usually be detected early if they are considered in the epileptologist's differential diagnosis. No single diagnostic criterion for this behavioural disorder is known to be pathognomonic. Epilepsy and all physiological explanations have to be thoroughly ruled out and positive evidence of relevant...

Hyperlalia: A Right Cerebral Hemisphere Syndrome

We describe a new right hemispheric behavioural syndrome for which we propose the name “hyperlalia”. In a typical case an apparently unconcerned and expressionless patient is easily prompted to remarkable volubility with a content which is loose and incoherent. The voice is low and monotonous. All the lesions confirmed by computed tomography of the brain overlapped in the...

The Neurology of Proverbs

Although proverb tests are commonly used in the mental status examination surprisingly little is known about either normal comprehension or the interpretation of proverbial expressions. Current proverbs tests have conceptual and linguistic shortcomings, and few studies have been done to investigate the specific effects of neurological and psychiatric disorders on the...

Psychopathology of Time in Brain Disease and Schizophrenia

The literature on disturbance of time-sense in brain disease and schizophrenia is reviewed and the subjective experience of altered time-sense reported by 45 out of 350 personally interviewed schizophrenics is analyzed. A review of the literature on the effect of brain damage revealed that some phenomena (déjà vu, reduplication of time, altered tempo to events) were linked with...