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Catatonia: A window into the cerebral underpinnings of will

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2003

Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza ,
Jorge Moll ,
Fátima Azevedo Ignácio  and
Paul J. Eslingerc
Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza
Affiliation:
Neuroimaging and Behavioral Neurology Group (GNNC), Hospitais D'Or and LABS, Rio de Janeiro, 22281-080, Brazilneuropsychiatry@hotmail.comjmoll@neuroimage.com
Jorge Moll
Affiliation:
Neuroimaging and Behavioral Neurology Group (GNNC), Hospitais D'Or and LABS, Rio de Janeiro, 22281-080, Brazilneuropsychiatry@hotmail.comjmoll@neuroimage.com
Fátima Azevedo Ignácio
Affiliation:
Instituto Philippe Pinel, Rio de Janeiro, Brazilfazevedo33@hotmail.com
Paul J. Eslingerc
Affiliation:
Departments of Medicine (Neurology), Behavioral Science and Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Penn State University, Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA 17033 peslinger@psu.edu
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Abstract

The will is one of the three pillars of the trilogy of mind that has pervaded Western thought for millennia, the other two being affectivity and cognition (Hilgard 1980). In the past century, the concept of will was imperceptibly replaced by the cognitive-oriented behavioral qualifiers “voluntary,” “goal-directed,” “purposive,” and “executive” (Tranel et al. 1994), and has lost much of its heuristic merits, which are related to the notion of “human autonomy” (Lhermitte 1986). We view catatonia as the clinical expression of impairment of the brain mechanisms that promote human will. Catatonia is to the brain systems engaged in will, as coma is to the reticular ascending systems that promote sleep and wakefulness (Plum 1991).

Type
Brief Report
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 25 , Issue 5 , October 2002 , pp. 582 - 584
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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