[A dynamic neuropsychological approach].
There are at least two approaches in evaluating neuropsychological patients. One is to analyze negative symptoms and find a correlation between a damaged brain lesion and a lost function. The other is to focus on the nature of positive symptoms and find a principle ruling a behavioral change caused by a lesion. Although both approaches are equally important, I focused on the latter approach in this symposium. Two syndromes, i.e. forced manipulation of tools and hyperlexia are interpreted in terms of the rivalry between the top-down process of inhibition and bottom-up process of stimulus processing, resulting in the predominance of the latter. Two other symptoms, i.e. misperception in a case of associative visual agnosia and habitual behavior in a frontal damaged-dementia are interpreted in the same terms, but resulting in the predominance of the top-down process. These syndromes clearly illustrate that the behavior is organized on the dynamic balance between the information generated internally and the one coming in from the environment.
Yamadori
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Division of Neuropsychology, Department of Disability Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine.
D000377:Agnosia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests