This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Movements Associated With Loss of Proprioception

Frank R. Sharp, MD; Thomas A. Rando, MD, PhD; Steven A. Greenberg, MD; Lucy Brown, PhD; Stephen M. Sagar, MD

Arch Neurol. 1994;51(11):1103-1109.

Abstract
Objective
To describe seven patients with proprioceptive sensory loss and choreoathetoid movements.

Design
Case series.

Setting
Outpatient and inpatient university referral.

Patients
Patients with sensory loss and abnormal movements.

Intervention
None.

Main Outcome Measure
None.

Results
One patient had a parietal cortex injury, one had a thalamic infarction, two had spinal cord lesions, two had dorsal root ganglion neuronopathies, and one had an ulnar neuropathy. In each case, the duration of abnormal movements correlated with the duration of proprioceptive sensory loss, and the abnormal movements were restricted to body parts with proprioceptive sensory loss. The movements varied from chorea and athetosis to dystonia.

Conclusions
These cases suggest that proprioceptive sensory loss can lead to a movement disorder, termed pseudochoreoathetosis, which occurs following the appearance of lesions anywhere along proprioceptive sensory pathways, from peripheral nerves to the cerebral cortex. It is hypothesized that pseudochoreoathetosis occurs because of the failure to process limb proprioceptive information in the striatum. Therefore, both choreoathetosis and pseudochoreoathetosis may be manifestations of the failure of the striatum to properly integrate cortical motor and sensory inputs.

Author Affiliations
From the Department of Neurology (V127), University of California, and the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, Calif (Drs Sharp, Rando, Greenberg, and Sagar); and the Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein School of Medicine, Bronx, NY (Dr Brown).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Neurogenic Pain and Abnormal Movements Contralateral to an Anterior Parietal Artery Stroke
Rossetti et al.
Arch Neurol 2003;60:1004-1006.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Delayed onset mixed involuntary movements after thalamic stroke: Clinical, radiological and pathophysiological findings
Kim
Brain 2001;124:299-309.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT