COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF HYPERKINETIC AND AKINETIC EXTRAPYRAMIDAL DISORDERS

Abstract

ALTHOUGH there is a considerable number of reports on record of psychopathological changes of various kinds in cases of circumscribed lesions of the subcortical gray structures of the brain, systematic psychological investigation of such cases has been performed only rarely. This may be due partly to peculiarities in the symptoms and course of the illness in such cases, partly to the fact that the underlying anatomical lesion has been found, in some cases, only unexpectedly at autopsy¹ but mainly to the tendency of the majority of Rorschach investigators to formulate a theory of "generalization" in regard to the influence of organic brain damage. There has been a tendency in these psychological investigations to consider the different cases and various kinds of organic brain damage as though they formed a single entity in the psychological respect. It could be shown, however, that this generalizing view should be modified, at least