Background: Sleep and its architecture are affected and changing through the whole lifespan. We know main modifications of the macro-architecture with a shorter sleep, occurring earlier and being more fragmented. We have been studying sleep micro-architecture through its pathological modification in sleep, psychiatric or neurocognitive disorders whereas we are still unable to say if the sleep micro-architecture of an old and very old person is rather normal, under physiological changes, or a concern for a future disorder to appear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Up to 70% of breast cancer patients report symptoms of insomnia during and after treatment. Despite the ubiquity of insomnia symptoms, they are under-screened, under-diagnosed and poorly managed in breast cancer patients. Sleep medications treat symptoms but are ineffective to cure insomnia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In the nineteenth century, Jean Martin Charcot explained functional neurological disorder (formerly called conversion disorder) as a "psychodynamic" lesion. Numerous advances in neuroimaging have permitted identification of the neural underpinnings of this disorder.
Case Presentation: Herein we describe a case of functional neurological disorder (FND) with initial left sensorimotor deficit, in-coordinated limb movements, neglect, clouded consciousness, slurred speech and a semiology of visual impairment.
Motor conversion disorder (CD) entails genuine disturbances in the subjective experience of patients who maintain they are unable to perform a motor function, despite lack of apparent neurological damage. Abilities by which individuals assess their own capacities during performance in a task are called metacognitive, and distinctive impairment of such abilities is observed in several disorders of self-awareness such as blindsight and anosognosia. In CD, previous research has focused on the recruitment of motor and emotional brain systems, generally linking symptoms to altered limbic-motor interactions; however, metacognitive function has not been studied to our knowledge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Neurol Neurosci
July 2018
This chapter is aimed at highlighting the recent findings concerning physiopathology, diagnosis, and management of conversion, factitious disorder, and malingering. Conversion disorder is the unintentional production of neurological symptom, whereas malingering and factitious disorder represent the voluntary production of symptoms with internal or external incentives. They have a close history and this has been frequently confounded.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Motor functional neurological disorder (mFND) is a clinical diagnosis with reliable features; however, patients are reluctant to accept the diagnosis and physicians themselves bear doubts on potential misdiagnoses. The identification of a positive biomarker could help limiting unnecessary costs of multiple referrals and investigations, thus promoting early diagnosis and allowing early engagement in appropriate therapy.
Objectives: To test whether resting-state (RS) functional magnetic resonance imaging could discriminate patients suffering from mFND from healthy controls.
Mov Disord Clin Pract
June 2017
Background: Functional (psychogenic) neurological disorders (FNDs) are common and should be diagnosed using positive diagnostic features of internal inconsistency. However, there is a lack of objective data regarding motor signs and a lack of signs relating to motor disorders that affect the upper body and neck. The objective of this study was to provide specificity and sensitivity data on 2 axial motor signs: the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) and platysma signs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConversion disorder or functional neurological symptom disorder (FND) can affect the voluntary motor system, without an organic cause. Functional symptoms are thought to be generated unconsciously, arising from underlying psychological stressors. However, attempts to demonstrate a direct relationship between the limbic system and disrupted motor function in FND are lacking.
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