From psychogenic movement disorder to functional movement disorder: It's time to change the name

Successive attempts at rebranding may be behind at least some of the proliferation of terms we have at our disposal when describing patients with what are now most often referred to as “psychogenic,” “conversion,” or “somatoform” symptoms. The most popular term in the movement disorder literature, “psychogenic,” provides the aetiology of the disorder within the name, indicating that the symptoms are “born of the mind.” Here we argue that it is logical to stop using a term that defines the disorder with regard to a poorly defined aetiology that is not supported by current evidence, and, instead, to use a broad term—functional—not as a “polite eponym” but as a term that is freer from such assumptions and does not reinforce dualistic thinking. The main argument for change is not political or even practical, but scientific. © 2013 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society     

Individual differences in interoceptive accuracy and prediction error in motor functional neurological disorders: A DTI study

In motor functional neurological disorders (mFND), relationships between interoception (a construct of high theoretical relevance to its pathophysiology) and neuroanatomy have not been previously investigated. This study characterized white matter in mFND patients compared to healthy controls (HCs), and investigated associations between fiber bundle integrity and cardiac interoception. Voxel‐based analysis and tractography quantified fractional anisotropy (FA) in 38 mFND patients compared to 38 HCs. Secondary analyses compared functional seizures (FND‐seiz; n = 21) or functional movement disorders (n = 17) to HCs. Network lesion mapping identified gray matter origins of implicated fiber bundles. Within‐group mFND analyses investigated relationships between FA, heartbeat tracking accuracy and interoceptive trait prediction error (discrepancies between interoceptive accuracy and self‐reported bodily awareness). Results were corrected for multiple comparisons, and all findings were adjusted for depression and trait anxiety. mFND and HCs did not show any between‐group interoceptive accuracy or FA differences. However, the FND‐seiz subgroup compared to HCs showed decreased integrity in right‐lateralized tracts: extreme capsule/inferior fronto‐occipital fasciculus, arcuate fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, and thalamic/striatum to occipital cortex projections. These alterations originated predominantly from the right temporoparietal junction and inferior temporal gyrus. In mFND patients, individual differences in interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive trait prediction error correlated with fiber bundle integrity originating from the insula, temporoparietal junction, putamen and thalamus among other regions. In this first study investigating brain‐interoception relationships in mFND, individual differences in interoceptive accuracy and trait prediction error mapped onto multimodal integration‐related fiber bundles. Right‐lateralized limbic and associative tract disruptions distinguished FND‐seiz from HCs.     

Motor functional neurological disorders: An update

Motor functional neurological disorders (FNDs) are motor symptoms not explained by a lesion or related to a known dysfunction of the central nervous system, yet functional imaging studies suggest the presence of a genuine brain dysfunction. With this common disabling condition, there is a particular need for collaboration between neurologists and psychiatrists. Neurologists can search for positive clinical signs to make the diagnosis, which can then be followed by an explanation of the disease, whereas psychiatrists can look for psychological factors and psychiatric comorbidities in order to deliver appropriate treatment. Such a multidisciplinary approach is important, particularly with the participation of neurologists, psychiatrists, physiotherapists and psychologists. If necessary, additional treatments such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), hypnosis and sedation may be proposed.     

Efficacy of psychoeducation on symptomatic and functional recovery in bipolar disorder

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of psychoeducation in the symptomatic and functional recovery, and quality of life (QoL) in a sample of patients with bipolar disorder (BD). Method: The sample comprised 55 patients with BD I and II in remission (Young Mania Rating Scale ≤6 and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale ≤7). Out‐patients were matched assigned to receive 16 sessions of psychoeducation [experimental group (EG)] or 16 sessions of placebo without psychoeducation [control group (CG)]. Groups were evaluated at study baseline, midpoint, endpoint, and at 6‐ and 12‐month follow‐ups. Results: No significant differences between the groups were found for the variables evaluated (mood symptoms, functioning and QoL), except for overall clinical improvement, subjectively perceived by EG subjects. Both groups showed a trend toward improved clinical global impression and QoL (environmental). No reduction in mood symptoms or improvement in psychosocial functioning was observed. Psychosocial treatment compliance was positively correlated with global functioning, social adjustment, sociability, and global clinical impression. Conclusion: Sixteen session psychoeducation seems to be ineffective to prevent mood episodes or improve functioning in a sample of bipolar patients.     

Action‐effect binding is decreased in motor conversion disorder: Implications for sense of agency

The abnormal movements seen in motor conversion disorder are affected by distraction and entrainment, similar to voluntary movement. Unlike voluntary movement, however, patients lack a sense of control for the abnormal movements, a failure of “self‐agency.” The action‐effect binding paradigm has been used to quantify the sense of self‐agency, because subjective contraction of time between an action and its effect only occurs if the patient feels that they are the agent responsible for the action. We used this paradigm, coupled with emotional stimuli, to investigate the sense of agency with voluntary movements in patients with motor conversion disorder. Twenty patients with motor conversion disorder and 20 age‐matched and sex‐matched healthy volunteers used a rotating clock to judge the time of their own voluntary key presses (action) and a subsequent auditory tone (effect) after they completed conditioning blocks in which high, medium, and low tones were coupled to images of happy, fearful, and neutral faces. The results replicated those produced previously: it was reported that an effect after a voluntary action occurred earlier, and the preceding action occurred later, compared with trials that used only key presses or tones. Patients had reduced overall binding scores relative to healthy volunteers, suggesting a reduced sense of agency. There was no effect of the emotional stimuli (faces) or other interaction effects. Healthy volunteers with subclinical depressive symptoms had higher overall binding scores. We demonstrate that patients with motor conversion disorder have decreased action‐effect binding for normal voluntary movements compared with healthy volunteers, consistent with the greater experience of lack of control. © 2013 Movement Disorder Society     

Conversion disorder: towards a neurobiological understanding

Conversion disorders are a common cause of neurological disability, but the diagnosis remains controversial and the mechanism by which psychological stress can result in physical symptoms “unconsciously” is poorly understood. This review summarises research examining conversion disorder from a neurobiological perspective. Early observations suggesting a role for hemispheric specialization have not been replicated consistently. Patients with sensory conversion symptoms have normal evoked responses in primary and secondary somatosensory cortex but a reduction in the P300 potential, which is thought to reflect a lack of conscious processing of sensory stimuli. The emergence of functional imaging has provided the greatest opportunity for understanding the neural basis of conversion symptoms. Studies have been limited by small patient numbers and failure to control for confounding variables. The evidence available would suggest a broad hypothesis that frontal cortical and limbic activation associated with emotional stress may act via inhibitory basal ganglia–thalamocortical circuits to produce a deficit of conscious sensory or motor processing. The conceptual difficulties that have limited progress in this area are discussed. A better neuropsychiatric understanding of the mechanisms of conversion symptoms may improve our understanding of normal attention and volition and reduce the controversy surrounding this diagnosis.     

Affective disorders in neurological diseases: a case register-based study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the temporal relationships between a range of neurological diseases and affective disorders. METHOD: Data derived from linkage of the Danish Psychiatric Central Register and the Danish National Hospital Register. Seven cohorts with neurological index diagnoses and two control group diagnoses were followed for up to 21 years. The incidences of affective disorders in the different groups were compared with the control groups, using competing risks to consider the risk of affective disorder and the risk of death in the same analysis. RESULTS: We found an increased incidence of affective disorders in dementia, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, stroke and intracerebral haemorrhage compared with control groups. The association was found to be the strongest for dementia and Parkinson's disease. In hospitalized patients, with incident multiple sclerosis, the incidence of affective disorder was lower than the incidence in the control groups. CONCLUSION: In neurological diseases there seems to be an increased incidence of affective disorders. The elevated incidence was found to be particularly high for dementia and Parkinson's disease (neurodegenerative diseases).     

Social (pragmatic) communication disorder: a research review of this new DSM-5 diagnostic category

Social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SCD) is a new diagnostic category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5). The purpose of this review is to describe and synthesize the relevant literature from language and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) research relating to pragmatic language impairment and other previously used terms that relate to SCD. The long-standing debate regarding how social communication/pragmatic impairments overlap and/or differ from language impairments, ASD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders is examined. The possible impact of the addition of SCD diagnostic category and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Factors associated with functional recovery in bipolar disorder patients

Wingo AP, Baldessarini RJ, Holtzheimer PE, Harvey PD. Factors associated with functional recovery in bipolar disorder patients.
Bipolar Disord 2010: 12: 319–326. © 2010 The Authors.
Journal compilation © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Objectives: Among bipolar disorder (BPD) patients, functional recovery, defined as regaining individual premorbid residential and vocational status, is far less common than symptomatic recovery. As several factors have tentatively been implicated in outcomes in BPD, we investigated predictors of functional recovery among BPD patients, including demographic, clinical, and neurocognitive factors. Methods: We assessed functional recovery status with standardized residential and occupational indices, assessed neurocognitive functioning with performance‐based neuropsychological tests, and collected demographic and clinical information for 65 euthymic or residually depressed Structured Clinical Interview for DSM‐IV‐defined type I or II BPD patients. We examined predictors of functional recovery with multiple logistic regression modeling. Results: More education (p = 0.006), fewer years of illness (p = 0.037), and being married (p = 0.045) were associated independently with functional recovery, even after controlling for residual depressive symptoms, diagnostic type (I versus II), and psychiatric comorbidity. Functionally unrecovered BPD patients performed less well than recovered patients on verbal fluency (effect size = 0.54, p = 0.03), a measure of executive functioning, but this difference was not significant when adjusted for residual mood symptoms and education. Conclusions: Among euthymic or mildly depressed BPD patients, functional recovery was associated with more education, being married, and fewer years of illness.     

The functional neuroanatomy of bipolar disorder: a consensus model

Strakowski SM, Adler CM, Almeida J, Altshuler LL, Blumberg HP, Chang KD, DelBello MP, Frangou S, McIntosh A, Phillips ML, Sussman JE, Townsend JD. The functional neuroanatomy of bipolar disorder: a consensus model.
Bipolar Disord 2012: 14: 313–325. © 2012 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Objectives: Functional neuroimaging methods have proliferated in recent years, such that functional magnetic resonance imaging, in particular, is now widely used to study bipolar disorder. However, discrepant findings are common. A workgroup was organized by the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH, USA) to develop a consensus functional neuroanatomic model of bipolar I disorder based upon the participants’ work as well as that of others. Methods: Representatives from several leading bipolar disorder neuroimaging groups were organized to present an overview of their areas of expertise as well as focused reviews of existing data. The workgroup then developed a consensus model of the functional neuroanatomy of bipolar disorder based upon these data. Results: Among the participants, a general consensus emerged that bipolar I disorder arises from abnormalities in the structure and function of key emotional control networks in the human brain. Namely, disruption in early development (e.g., white matter connectivity and prefrontal pruning) within brain networks that modulate emotional behavior leads to decreased connectivity among ventral prefrontal networks and limbic brain regions, especially the amygdala. This developmental failure to establish healthy ventral prefrontal–limbic modulation underlies the onset of mania and ultimately, with progressive changes throughout these networks over time and with affective episodes, a bipolar course of illness. Conclusions: This model provides a potential substrate to guide future investigations and areas needing additional focus are identified.     

Neurocognitive impairment in bipolar disorder patients: functional implications

Background: Functional recovery among treated bipolar disorder (BPD) patients is far less likely than syndromal and even symptomatic recovery. We hypothesized that increasingly well‐documented aspects of cognitive impairment may contribute to poor functional outcomes in BPD patients, and reviewed the available research on the topic. Methods: Computerized literature searching identified 12 studies with 13 comparisons that simultaneously evaluated cognitive and functional status in euthymic (n = 8) or non‐euthymic (n = 5 comparisons) adult BPD patients versus otherwise similar healthy controls. Results: In 6/8 studies of euthymic BPD patients and 5/5 studies of non‐euthymic BPD patients, neurocognitive impairment was significantly associated with impaired psychosocial functioning, even after adjusting for residual mood symptoms and relevant demographic and clinical variables. Cognitive status was consistently assessed with standardized, performance‐based neuropsychological tests, but functional status usually was based on subjective self‐appraisals. Approximately 55% of BPD patients were unemployed. Conclusions: Available studies are limited by subjective assessments of functional status rather than objective, performance‐based measures. Nevertheless, they support the hypothesis that enduring aspects of cognitive impairment found even in euthymic BPD patients are associated with inferior functioning. These findings encourage further studies with better assessment methods and greater rehabilitative efforts in BPD patients.     

Altered regional homogeneity in post-traumatic stress disorder: a restingstate functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Objective Little is known about the brain systems that contribute to vulnerability to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Comparison of the resting-state patterns of intrinsic functional synchronization, as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), between groups with and without PTSD following a traumatic event can help identify the neural mechanisms of the disorder and targets for intervention. Methods Fifty-four PTSD patients and 72 matched traumatized subjects who experienced the 2008 Sichuan earthquake were imaged with blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI and analyzed using the measure of regional homogeneity (ReHo) during the resting state. Results PTSD patients presented enhanced ReHo in the left inferior parietal lobule and right superior frontal gyrus, and reduced ReHo in the right middle temporal gyrus and lingual gyrus, relative to traumatized individuals without PTSD. Conclusion Our findings showed that abnormal brain activity exists under resting conditions in PTSD patients who had been exposed to a major earthquake. Alterations in the local functional connectivity of cortical regions are likely to contribute to the neural mechanisms underlying PTSD.     

A longitudinal functional connectivity analysis of the amygdala in bipolar I disorder across mood states

Cerullo MA, Fleck DE, Eliassen JC, Smith MS, DelBello MP, Adler CM, Strakowski SM. A longitudinal functional connectivity analysis of the amygdala in bipolar I disorder across mood states. Bipolar Disord 2012: 14: 175–184. © 2012 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Objective: Bipolar I disorder is characterized by affective symptoms varying between depression and mania. The specific neurophysiology responsible for depression in bipolar I disorder is unknown but previous neuroimaging studies suggest impairments in corticolimbic regions that are responsible for regulating emotion. The amygdala seems to play a central role in this network and is responsible for appraisal of emotional stimuli. To further understand the role of the amygdala in the generation of mood symptoms, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine a group of patients with bipolar I disorder longitudinally. Methods: fMRI was used to study regional brain activation in 15 bipolar I disorder patients followed for up to one year. Patients received an fMRI scan during an initial manic episode and a subsequent depressive episode. During the scans, patients performed an attentional task that incorporated emotional pictures. Fifteen healthy comparison subjects were also scanned at baseline and then at four months. Whole‐brain functional connectivity analysis was performed using the left and right amygdala as seed regions. Results: Significant changes in amygdala functional connectivity were found between the manic and depressed phases of illness. The right amygdala was significantly more positively correlated with the left inferior frontal gyrus during mania and with the right insula during depression. There were no significant differences in left amygdala correlations across mood states in the bipolar I disorder group. Conclusions: In the transition from a manic/mixed episode to a depressive episode, subjects with bipolar I disorder showed unique changes in cortical–amygdala functional connectivity. Increased connectivity between the insula and right amygdala may generate excessive positive feedback, in that both of these regions are involved in the appraisal of emotional stimuli. Increased correlation between the right amygdala and the inferior frontal gyrus in mania is consistent with previous findings of decreased prefrontal modulation of limbic regions in mania. These differences in connectivity may represent neurofunctional markers of mood state as they occurred in the same individuals across manic and depressive episodes.     

Implications of the distinction between organic and functional psychoses

On the basis of their symptomatology, some psychoses are called organic. The remaining psychoses are called functional. It is generally supposed that symptomatically organic psychoses have organic causes and thus call for medical investigations, while the functional psychoses are not so caused, and call for a dynamic formulation rather than an organic one. The author examines the basis for this distinction, and argues that it is logically unsound. He gives examples of exceptions to the rule, both organic-seeming illnesses that are the consequence of psychological mechanisms, and symptomatologically functional psychoses with organic antecedents. The exceptions prove to be so numerous that a different approach to the investigation of the psychoses, an approach stressing antecedents rather than symptomatology, appears to be called for.     

成人抑郁症患者儿童期受虐对神经系统软体征的影响

目的:研究抑郁症患者儿童期受虐待对神经系统软体征的影响. 方法:对103例抑郁症患者行儿童受虐问卷、神经系统软体征、汉密尔顿抑郁量表、自杀意念量表以及Beck绝望量表评定.结果:①儿童受虐患者较未受虐者额叶有更多的软体征(2.51±1.61,1.77±1.25,P＜0.01).有情感忽视患者额叶软体征也明显高于无情感忽视者(2.53±1.63,1.80±1.25,P＜0.05);有躯体忽视者额叶较无躯体忽视者软体征明显增多(2.41±1.63,1.65±1.00,P＜0.01);有性虐待患者软体征明显高于无性虐待者(6.29±1.83,4.28±2.82,P＜0.01).②受虐总分与额叶和颞叶评分呈明显正相关(r=0.29,P＜0.01;r=0.24,P＜0.05);情感受虐待、情感被忽视及躯体虐待与额叶评分呈明显正相关(r=0.284,0.345,0.218,P＜0.01或0.05).③HAMD与神经系统软体征总分及各脑叶均呈明显正相关;自杀意念量表评分与神经系统软体征总分及额叶、顶叶、颞叶软体征评分呈明显正相关. 结论:抑郁症患者儿童期受虐对大脑有不利影响,不同虐待可对不同脑区产生损害,主要在额叶.