title: [Imitation and utilization behavior in major depressive states].
abstract: Imitation and utilization behaviour (IB ; UB) have been described in lesions or deafferentations of the frontal lobes. Both reflect a loss of the patients' autonomy. IB and UB having been encountered in a case of melancholia, a systematic study has been undertaken in psychiatric departments. Sixty patients have been examined among whom 18 had a major depressive episode and 19 a dysthymic episode. IB or UB or both were present in every case of the first group, in 3 cases of the second one. Such data show first an unexpected focal specific neurological sign in a psychiatric disease. Second, they suggest a relationship with the frontal hypoactivity shown by PET studies in major depressive episodes. Such frontal hypoactivity should not be viewed as the cause of major depression but as a concomitant disorder. Its role in the awareness and expression of the thymic disturbance is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Service de Psychiatrie, hôpital de La Salpêtrière, Paris.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lhermitte
mesh_terms: D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012189:Retrospective Studies
vernacular_title: Les comportements d'imitation et d'utilisation dans les états dépressifs majeurs.