title: An update on psychogenic movement disorders.
abstract: Psychogenic movement disorders (PMD) and other conversion disorders (CD) with apparent neurologic signs (neurologic CD) plague patients and perplex physicians. Due to a lack of objective evidence of underlying brain lesions, CD were largely abandoned by neurologists and remained poorly understood psychiatric diagnoses throughout most of the 20th century. Modern neuroscience now supports increasingly comprehensive biological models for these complex disorders, definitively establishing their place in both neurology and psychiatry. Although it is often clinically useful to distinguish a movement disorder as either "organic" or "psychogenic," this dichotomy is difficult to defend scientifically. Here we describe the neuroimaging and neurophysiologic evidence for dysfunctional neural networks in PMD, explain the diagnostic potential of clinical neurophysiologic testing, discuss the promising if increasingly complex role of neuropsychiatric genetics, and review current treatment strategies.
authors.affiliation: Human Motor Control Section, Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1428, USA. ellensteina@ninds.nih.gov
authors.forename: Aviva
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ellenstein
authors.forename: Sarah M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Kranick
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hallett
mesh_terms: D003291:Conversion Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D009462:Neurology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011570:Psychiatry