Catatonia is a complex neuropsychiatric syndrome characterised by a broad range of motor, speech and behavioural abnormalities. 'Waxy flexibility', 'posturing' and 'catalepsy' are among the well-recognised motor abnormalities seen in catatonia. However, there are many other motor abnormalities associated with catatonia. Recognition of the full spectrum of the phenomenology is critical for an ac...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW This review focuses on recent studies assessing clinical features and laboratory findings that may help diagnose psychogenic movement disorders, and the ongoing controversy about the relationship of these disorders with preceding peripheral injury. RECENT FINDINGS 'Organic' movement disorders may still be misdiagnosed as psychogenic. Probably more commonly, however, psychoge...

Psychostimulants are a diverse group of substances with their main psychomotor effects resembling those of amphetamine, methamphetamine, cocaine, or cathinone. Due to their potential as drugs of abuse, recreational use of most of these substances is illegal since 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. In recent years, new psychoactive substances have emerged mainly as synthetic cathinones ...

Since Laitinen’s report of pallidotomy for the treatment of advanced Parkinson’s disease less than a decade ago, there has been a resurgence of interest in functional neurosurgery for movement disorders. The convergence of several paths, including the clinical problem of levodopa induced dyskinesias and motor fluctuations, increased understanding of cellular pathophysiology, improved brain imag...

Introduction Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, in 1964, while trying to define “obscenity,” articulated the now well-known “I shall not today attempt to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . .” In some respects, a similar comment can be made about movement disorders. A movement disorder typically is defined as dysfunction in the i...