PATTERNS IN ALLESTHESIA AND THEIR RELATION TO DISORDER OF BODY SCHEME AND OTHER SENSORY PHENOMENA

Abstract

IN RECENT communications one of us (M. B. B.) and associates¹have described unusual sensory changes in patients with diffuse disease of the brain. These changes were unilateral allesthesia, or crossed displacement; extinction of sensation, and disturbances in location and identification of parts of the body. All these dysfunctions were found to be on one side of the body and were associated with severe mental disorder. Analyses of the responses to stimulations made in the affected sensory field disclosed that the defects were more pronounced in one area than in another. Thus, allesthesia, as well as extinction, was found oftenest in an extremity and seldom in the face. Extinction was more likely to occur in the distal than in the proximal portion of an extremity.^1cThese spatial differences were observed on repeated examinations. Moreover, under the influence of amobarbital sodium (amytal sodium^®) the area which yielded allesthesia