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An Update on Psychogenic Movement Disorders

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Abstract

Psychogenic movement disorders (PMD) and other conversion disorders (CD) with apparent neurologic signs (neurologic CD) plague patients and perplex physicians. Due to a lack of objective evidence of underlying brain lesions, CD were largely abandoned by neurologists and remained poorly understood psychiatric diagnoses throughout most of the 20th century. Modern neuroscience now supports increasingly comprehensive biological models for these complex disorders, definitively establishing their place in both neurology and psychiatry. Although it is often clinically useful to distinguish a movement disorder as either “organic” or “psychogenic,” this dichotomy is difficult to defend scientifically. Here we describe the neuroimaging and neurophysiologic evidence for dysfunctional neural networks in PMD, explain the diagnostic potential of clinical neurophysiologic testing, discuss the promising if increasingly complex role of neuropsychiatric genetics, and review current treatment strategies.

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Disclosure

No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Motor Control Section, Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 7D42, 10 Center Drive, MSC 1428, Bethesda, MD, 20892–1428, USA

    Aviva Ellenstein, Sarah M. Kranick & Mark Hallett

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  1. Aviva Ellenstein
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  2. Sarah M. Kranick
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  3. Mark Hallett
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Correspondence to Aviva Ellenstein.

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Ellenstein, A., Kranick, S.M. & Hallett, M. An Update on Psychogenic Movement Disorders. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 11, 396–403 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-011-0205-z

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