Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome
David Enoch, Basant K. Puri, Hadrian Ball in Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes, 2020
Latah is a condition that was first observed to occur in Malayans by O’Brien, 1883 and was described by Yap (1952) as “a curious behavioural quirk or aberration, normal but not quite so.” The Latah reaction, comprising a severe startle response, imitative behaviour, automatic obedience and coprolalia, is alleged to occur in cultures with a limited control over their environment. The victim is compelled against his will to imitate the commands and actions of others, although this may be detrimental to him. There are, however, fundamental differences between Latah and Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome. Tics never occur in Latah, and imitative phenomena are often absent in Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome. Coprolalia in Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome is spontaneous, whereas it is always provoked in Latah. Another essential feature of Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome is its onset in childhood, while Latah is never seen before late adolescence and occurs most commonly in middle and old age.
100 MCQs from Dr. Brenda Wright and Colleagues
David Browne, Selena Morgan Pillay, Guy Molyneaux, Brenda Wright, Bangaru Raju, Ijaz Hussein, Mohamed Ali Ahmed, Michael Reilly in MCQs for the New MRCPsych Paper A, 2017
Koro involves an episode of sudden and intense anxiety that the penis will recede into the body and possibly cause death. It is associated with a feeling of overwhelming panic. The patient may attempt to prevent retraction. The syndrome is reported in South and East Asia. Dhat is a term used in India to refer to severe anxiety and hypochondriacal concerns associated with the discharge of semen, whitish discoloration of the urine, and feelings of weakness and exhaustion. Latah is hypersensitivity to sudden fright, often with echopraxia, echolalia, command obedience and dissociative behaviour. The syndrome has been found in many parts of the world. Brain fag is a term initially used in West Africa to refer to a condition experienced by student in response to the challenges of schooling. Symptoms include difficulties in concentrating, remembering and thinking. Amok is a dissociative episode characterised by a period of brooding followed by an outburst of violent aggressive or homicidal behaviour directed at people and objects. (14, pp 2286–9)
Questions and Answers
David Browne, Brenda Wright, Guy Molyneux, Mohamed Ahmed, Ijaz Hussain, Bangaru Raju, Michael Reilly in MRCPsych Paper I One-Best-Item MCQs, 2017
Answer: C. Dhat is a term used in India to refer to severe anxiety and hypochondriacal concerns associated with the discharge of semen, whit-ish discolouration of the urine and feelings of weakness and exhaustion. Koro involves an episode of sudden and intense anxiety that the penis will recede into the body and possibly cause death. It is associated with a feeling of overwhelming panic. The patient may attempt to prevent retraction. The syndrome is reported in South and East Asia. Latah is hypersensitivity to sudden fright, often with echopraxia, echolalia, command obedience and dissociative behaviour. The syndrome has been found in many parts of the world. Brain fag is a term initially used in West Africa to refer to a condition experienced by students in response to the challenges of schooling. Symptoms include difficulties in concentrating, remembering and thinking. Amok is a dissociative episode characterised by a period of brooding followed by an outburst of violent aggressive or homicidal behaviour directed at people and objects. [P. pp. 2286–9]
A peculiar condition: A history of the Jumping Frenchmen Syndrome in scientific and popular accounts
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2018
Mark Paul Richard
In one textbook, authors Robert E. Bartholomew, Benjamin Radford, and Stephen R. Whalen (2003) contrasted the work on latah with Beard’s on jumping to underscore the lack of racism in the latter’s study. “During the 1880s, Western scientists used the prevalence of latah among Malays and Indonesians to paint a picture of the natives as inherently nervous, mentally unstable, and irrational. This stereotype of the Malays as ideal followers justified colonial domination,” they wrote (2003, p. 153). “In contrast, Beard described the jumpers as physically and mentally strong. Beard speculated that jumping was caused by temporary degeneration from exposure to their rustic environment, but he made no conclusions about racial heredity or a diminished capacity for the ability to make rational judgments” (Bartholomew, Radford, & Whalen, 2003, pp. 153–154).19Incidentally, Bartholomew, Radford, and Whalen pointed out that some medical conditions—such as magnesium deficiency, tetanus, and degenerative brain disorder—cause excessive startling, but no medical condition has been noted among the jumpers (Bartholomew, Radford, & Whalen, 2003, p. 155). The authors were apparently unaware that genetecists working on the human genome project had identified a gene that might be responsible for such startle syndromes as jumping (see Robert Cooke, Newsday, in Bangor Daily News, Dec. 3, 1993). As demonstrated in this article, the popular press did that.
The concepts of heredity and degeneration in the work of Jean-Martin Charcot
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2020
Olivier Walusinski
He explained that “under the combined influence of peripheral and central excitations, we will see degenerates, these future candidates for mental alienation, executing a series of bizarre actions, designated as ‘Latah, Jumping, and Myriachit’ by foreign authors.” Breitman showed, based on several observations he had collected, that echolalia, coprolalia, and echokinesis could be seen in various types of mental alienation, especially in deliriums, and concluded that “echolalia, coprolalia, and echokinesis accompanied by tics can make up a perfectly independent morbid syndrome with a determined progression, the tic disease or Gilles de la Tourette disease. Patients with this disease are degenerate” (Walusinski 2019).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- Echopraxia
- Obedience
- Somatic Symptom Disorder
- Echolalia
- Surprise
- Genetic Disorder
- Culture-Bound Syndrome
- Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
- Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders