Synonyms
Gilles de la Tourette syndrome; Tics
Short Description and Categorization
Tourette Syndrome (TS) is a childhood-onset movement disorder characterized by involuntary motor and vocal tics that may wax and wane over time. It was first reported in 1885 by Gilles de la Tourette and Jean-Martin Charcot. The pathophysiological underpinning for the symptoms of TS is commonly identified as dysfunction in basal ganglia mediated fronto-subcortical circuits (Kurlan 1994).
Epidemiology
TS occurs in approximately 1% of the population (Hunter 2007; Robertson 2008). Common motor tics include eye blinking, head jerking, and facial grimaces. Throat clearing, sniffing, and blowing are common vocal tics. Coprolalia, a vocal tic that is characterized by use of obscene language, is present in less than 15% of individuals with TS. TS occurs more often in males than females (average male/female ratio 4:1) and has been observed across ethnic and racial groups, but is thought to occur more often in...
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Kaylegian, J., Hunter, S.J. (2018). Tourette Syndrome. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1600
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1600
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