Balint's syndrome

Balint's syndrome

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Balint's syndrome, identified by the Austro-Hungarian neurologist Rezső Bálint in 1909, [WhoNamedIt|synd|1343] [R. Balint. Seelenlähmung des "Schauens", optische Ataxia, räumliche Störung der Aufmerksamkeit. Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie, 1909, 25: 51-81.] is a disjointed psychic paralysis of gaze with haphazard scanning. It is improperly characterized by "optic ataxia" (incoordination of hand and eye movement, those with Balint syndrome grasp for them as if blind), "optic apraxia" (the inability to voluntarily guide eye movements/ change to a new location of visual fixation). Due to cortical gaze paralysis, patients also have simultanagnosia (the inability to perceive more than one object at a time, even when in the same place). Balint's syndrome is the result of visual binding deficits.

Neuroanatomical evidence

Balint's syndrome has been found in patients with bilateral damage to the posterior parietal cortex. The primary cause of the damage and the syndrome can originate from multiple strokes, Alzheimer's disease, intracranial tumors, or brain injury. This syndrome is caused by damage to the posterior superior watershed areas aka the parietal-occipital vascular border zone (Brodmann's areas 19 and 7). Balint's syndrome has only recently been reported in children. [Gillen, J.A. and Dutton, G.N. (2003). Balint's syndrome in a 10-year-old male. "Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 45":349-32.] In children this syndrome results in a variety of occupational difficulties, but most notably difficulties in schoolwork, especially reading.

Treatment

Treatment for Balint's syndrome usually takes advantage of an adaptive functional approach, where the individual's strengths are utilized in order to address his or her difficulties.

References

* Damasio, A.R. "Disorders of complex visual processing: agnosia, achromatopsia, Balint's syndrome, and related difficulties of orientation and construction." In: M.M. Mesulam, Editor, Principles of Behavioral Neurology, Davis, Philadelphia (1985).

* M Rizzo, S P Vecera. (2002) Psychoanatomical substrates of Bálint's syndrome. Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 72:162-178. Full article available free at http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/72/2/162


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