Miscellany

Bender, Lauretta, and Schilder, Paul. Mannerisms as Organic Motility Syndrome. [ Confinia Neurologica,  3: 321-2. 1941.]

Motility disturbances which occur in psychiatric conditions seem at first glance to differ strongly from those observed in neurological states. They can however be approached from the organic point of view, as the works of Kahlbaum, Kleist and others have demonstrated. The authors have studied the problem in various clinical conditions. Under anoxia induced by nitrogen inhalation, patients start to show restless movements. They move their arms and legs, rotate, bend, and stretch them. While these movements look voluntary, the patients evidently try to hinder them. The restless movements soon change to mild cloni of obvious subcortical origin. The impression obtains that the total motor part of the personality has some part in these semi-voluntary activities. Similar phenomena are seen in patients under insulin. They start to move around in a manneristic fashion, grimace, roll and toss in a somewhat clownish manner. It is impossible to determine whether such mannerisms are due to a disturbance of cortical or subcortical mechanisms since both are disturbed in these cases. A third group of cases is found in alcoholics with other indications of an alcoholic encephalography, especially in negroes. In many of the cases, marked changes in postural reflex are present. Clinically related groups show distinct catatonic phenomena in the field of motility. In these cases, changes are found predominantly in the periventricular