Hurst revisited: Are symptoms and signs of functional motor and sensory disorders "dependent on idea"?

Introduction: Symptoms and signs of functional (psychogenic) motor and sensory disorder are often said to be dependent on the patients' idea of what symptoms should be, rather than anatomy and physiology. This hypothesis has however rarely been tested.

Materials And Methods: Inspired by a brief experiment carried out in 1919 by neurologist Arthur Hurst we aimed to assess the views of healthy non-medical adults towards paralysis and numbness and their response to tests for functional disorders when asked to pretend to have motor and sensory symptoms.