How Brain Cancer Can Produce Psychopathology

Working in consultation psychiatry you become familiar with how brain diseases, like brain cancer can produce a variety of psychopathology. It is important to not search for psychological explanations in these situations but accurate diagnosis and treatment of the underlying brain disorder is key.

The New York Times has a very evocative and informative piece by a neuroscientist who experienced metatstatic melanoma to the brain. Her account is an excellent summary of some of the types of psychopathology found in brain cancer. I counted these signs and symptoms of psychopathology but there are probably more in her account:
*blindness in a partial visual field (homonymous hemianopsia)
*psychomotor agitation
*personality change
*amnesia
*loss of personal GPS
*behavioral disinhibition
*agnosia
*hypergraphia
*grandiosity
*paranoia

Read the New York Times story HERE.

Osprey in flight is an original pic from the authors' files.

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