Table Of ContentNeuropsychiatry 
and 
Behavioral Pharmacology
c. 
Thomas Gualtieri 
N europsychiatry 
and 
Behavioral Pharmacology 
Springer-Verlag 
New York  Berlin  Heidelberg  London 
Paris  Tokyo  Hong Kong  Barcelona
C. Thomas Gualtieri 
Medical Director 
at North Carolina Neuropsychiatry 
Chapel Hili, NC 27516 
and 
at Rebound, Inc. 
Hendersonville, TN 37077, USA 
Gualtieri, C. Thomas 
Neuropsyehiatry and behavioral pharmaeology  I  C. Thomas Gualtieri. 
p.  em. 
IncIudes bibliographieal referenees. 
ISBN-13:978-0-387-97314-2  e-ISBN-13:978-1-4613-9036-7 
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4613-9036-7 
1. Neuropsyehiatry.  2. Psyehopharmaeology.  3. Brain-Wounds and 
injuries-Complieations and sequelae.  4. Brain-Diseases 
Complieations and sequelae.  I. Title. 
[DNLM: 1. Behavior-drug effeets.  2. Brain Injuries 
eomplieations.  3. Brain Injuries-psyehology.  4. Organie Mental 
Disorders-psyehology.  5. Psyehotropie Drugs-therapeutie use.  WL 
354 G912n] 
RC343.Q35  1990 
616.8-de20 
DNLM/DLC  90-9805 
Printed on aeid-free paper. 
© 1991 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. 
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or eopied in whole or in part without the written 
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errors or omissions that may be made.  The publisher makes no warranty, express of implied, with 
respeet to the material contained herein. 
Text prepared on Xerox Ventura Publisher using author-supplied WordPerfect disks. 
987654321 
ISBN -13 :978-0-387-97314-2
Ta Anthony Powell, his brothers and sisters, 199Q
Contents 
Introduction............................................................................................  Xl 
1.  The Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of Traumatic Brain Injury ..........  1 
The Neurobehavioral Sequelae of Traumatic Brain Injury • The 
Prediction of Outcome • The Trajectory of Recovery' Evaluation of 
the TBI Patient 
2.  Delayed Neurobehavioral Sequelae of Traumatic 
Brain Injury ...................................................................................  26 
Affective Disorders • Delayed Amnesia • Posttraumatic Epilepsy • 
Psychosis • Dementia 
3.  The Psychopharmacology ofTraumatic Brain Injury ...................  37 
Principles of Treatment· Psychostimulants • Amantadine • Other 
Dopamine Agonists • Antidepressants • Lithium' Neuroleptics • The 
Psychotropic Anticonvulsants • Benzodiazepines • Buspirone • Beta 
Adrenergic Blockers' Alpha Agonists' Calcium Channel Blockers 
• Opiates • Other Neuropeptides • Cholinergic Drugs' Nootropes' 
Cranial Electrostimulation (CES) • Examining the Patient on 
Psychoactive Medication 
4.  Inadvertent Drug Effects ................ ............................ ..................  89 
Licit Drugs • Illicit Drugs • Drugs Prescribed for Medical Reasons' 
H2 Receptor Antagonists • Sympathomimetics • Antispasticity Drugs
viii  Contents 
5.  Epilepsy .......................................................................................  102 
Neuropsychiatric Conditions in Epileptic Patients • Psychiatric 
Conditions That May Be Related to Epilepsy • Neuropsychological 
and Behavioral Effects of Anticonvulsant Drugs • Psychotropic 
Drugs as Convulsants and as Anticonvulsants 
6.  Neuropsychiatrie Oisorders in Mentally Retarded People .........  124 
Traditional Psychiatric Disorders • Behavioral Disorders • Pathobe-
havioral Mental Retardation Syndrome· Disorders of Serotonin 
Regulation 
7.  Self-Injurious Behavior ...............................................................  159 
The Pharmacotherapy of SIB • Testing the Dl Model· The 
Differential Diagnosis of SIB 
8.  Behavior in the Cornelia Oe Lange Syndrome ...........................  173 
The CDLS Survey • Contrasting Data • Behavior in the Cornelia de 
Lange Syndrome 
9.  Autism .........................................................................................  187 
Wh at Is Autism?· The Psychopharmacology of Autism • 
Psychopharmacology for Autistic People· Epilepsy· Self-
Injurious Behavior· Aggression· Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior 
• Tourette's Syndrome· Abulia • Affective Disorders • Anxiety, 
Agitation, and Panie· Psyehosis and Sehizophrenia· Hyperaetive or 
Disorganized Behavior • The Kluver-Bucy Syndrome· Megavitamins 
10.  Tardive Oyskinesia .....................................................................  209 
The Prevalence of Serious Neuroleptic Side Effects • Risk Faetors 
for Tardive Dyskinesia • Biological Mechanisms • Diagnosis • 
Treatment· The Course of the Disorder • Malignant TD • Behavioral 
and Cognitive Manifestations of Tardive Dyskinesia • Neuroleptic 
Nonresponders • Alternatives to Neuroleptic Treatment· Tardive 
Dyskinesia Policy and Recommendations • TMS: A System for 
Prevention and Control • The Development of TMS 
11.  Three Neuropsychiatrie Conditions of Childhood .......................  235 
Childhood Hyperactivity • The Kleine-Levin Syndrome· Rheumatic 
Psyehosis
Contents  ix 
12.  Behavioral Psychopharmacology ...... .......... ................ .................  255 
Therapeutic Trials Are Hypothesis Testing  Theoretical Models Run 
0 
in Parallel  Behavior Is a Measurable Thing  There Is a Personal 
0  0 
Economy to Consider  And a Wider Economy  Structure 
0  0  0 
Epilepsy Is First  In Fever of Unknown Origin, Stop All Drugs 
0  0 
Overt Toxicity Is Not a Bad Thing  Long-Term Drugs Require 
0 
Long-Term Evaluation  Doses are Empiricalo "Yes-No" Drugs oYou 
0 
Do Not Know Until You Try  Monitoring Is No Substitute for 
0 
Intelligence 
Afterword .............................................................................................. 268 
Appendices ........................................................................................... 271 
References ............................................................................................ 277 
Index ..................................................................................................... 345
Introduction 
Neuropsychiatry is applied neuroscience. The brain, not behavior, is its point of 
departure. In this, it is distanced from the concerns of traditional psychiatry, which 
is built around the primacy of behavior. The neuropsychiatrist is concerned with 
brain, and behavior is derivative. 
Neuropsychiatry has been defined, in the past, with a narrow view of its proper 
domain: disorders that are clearly related to alesion, like stroke; orto adegenerative 
disease, like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's; or to a systemic condition that affects 
brain, like Lupus, for example. Our interest, and the concern of this book, is with 
a different class of neuropsychiatric conditions, and they are hardly ever dealt with 
in the literature. They are the behavioral syndromes that arise as a result of 
congenital or acquired brain injuries. 
So, this is what we are about: the neuropsychiatric effect of traumatic brain 
injury, the behavioral syndromes associated with mental retardation, and a few of 
the development disabilities of childhood. The subject of our concern is, therefore, 
unique. It is different from the usual concern of neuropsychiatrists, behavioral 
neurologists, and neuropsychologists. There is also a different approach to the 
subject. 
The concern is not with lesions but with prototypes, prototypes of mechanisms 
that govern brain, and disorders of brain. It is with the clinical meaning of specific 
neurophysiological processes, like kindling, reciprocal inhibition and activation, 
long-term potentiation, and time-dependent sensitization; of specific neurophar 
macologic processes; of the laws that govern the expression of human traits, 
collectively known by the name of behavioral genetics; and of the interaction 
between these elements and the personal ecology of the neuropsychiatric patient. 
The paradigms and mechanisms around these elements are only imperfectly 
understood. But they are, quite clearly, the presage ofhow we shall, someday, come 
to understandthe brain and its disorders. 
Since neuropsychiatry is an applied science, it bOITOWS models and paradigms 
from all of the preclinical neurosciences. Since it is a clinical sci'ence, it employs 
these models in the service of diagnosis and treatment. The art is in deciding which 
model is most appropriate to a give clinical circumstance; there is always a wide 
range of theoretical and empirical structures to choose among. This book is about 
a few clinical conditions where cogent models are at hand, and seem to be germane 
to diagnosis and treatment.
Introduction 
Xli 
The book is oriented towards developmelltal neuropsychiatry: that is, the con 
genital and the acquired disorders of relatively young people. It is concemed with 
relatively static conditions; the neurodegenerative disorders, that are usually the 
mainstay of neuropsychiatry, are not dealt with here. 
Although the patients we shall discuss have static disorders, some degree of 
functional recovery may always be expected. Treatment is designed not to slow the 
course of degeneration, but to enhance natural, compensatory healing processes. 
The clinical problems we  shall address are the severe behavior disorders of 
children, of retarded people, of people with epilepsy and of victims of traumatic 
brain injury. They are clinical problems for which effective treatment may be 
expected to bring years of useful and productive living. 
Treatment is  the focus.  There is clearly a need for a manual of practical 
therapeutics in this field. There is no current book oriented to the requirements of 
professionals in developmental neuropsychiatry, that presents practicaladvice 
within a theoretical framework.Treatment is also a window. It is a way to test the 
validity of theoretical models in the real world. It is, after all, a very good way to 
discover whether a neuroscientific paradigm has practical value. It is also a good 
place to generate ideas. In our opinion, one should never consider a field of clinical 
endeavor to be entirely derivative of basic science. There is an integrity to the 
applied sciences that is co-equal with the "purity" of the basic sciences. 
The treatment with which we are most directly concemed is psychopharmacol 
ogy,  but we  prefer the  term behavioral pharmacology.  That is  because the 
therapeutic approach to our unconventional patients is only rarely syndromic, in 
the sense of the Kraepelinian DSM-3. Approaches to treatment that are symptom 
matic, functional or hypothetical, as we shall describe, deserve to occupy an equal 
rank with approaches that are purely syndromic, in terms of psychiatric orthodoxy. 
Treatments are oriented to changes in specific target behaviors, to improvement in 
specific cognitive or regulatory functions, or to testing specific hypotheses con 
ceming the etiopathogenesis of a dis order. It is the special method one uses to deal 
with psychiatric problems in patients who cannot be classified by psychiatrists. It 
is entirely empirieal, and it places more reliance on treatment response over time 
than on front-end diagnostic exercises. 
This book is about a diverse group of patients-patients with whom we are very 
familiar, clinical problems that have been t~e focus of our research and teaching. 
The organization of the book is not comprehensive, however, since it is built around 
a few conditions with which we have had a great deal of experience. The interests 
of our research group have always been around the psychopharmacology of 
unusual populations. Events have conspired to lend a certain unity to our work, a 
framework that is captured in the title of the book, if not in its  subsequent 
construction. 
But the problems are new and interesting, and since they have not been, as a rule, 
the subject of a great deal of research by other clinical scientists, it is possible that 
our opinion will appear novel. Not as signal insights or as fundamental truths, 
perhaps, but, at least, as new perspectives.
CHAPTER 1 
The Neuropsychiatrie Sequelae of 
Traumatic Brain Injury 
The number of people with disabilities from serious brain injury is growing fast; 
they are one of the largest populations of neuropsychiatric patients in the United 
States. There are two reasons for this extraordinary phenomenon. 
The first reason is that patients who have sustained severe head injuries, for 
example in motor vehicle accidents, are now more likely to survive, compared even 
to ten years ago. Med-Evac technology and intensive neurosurgical care are better. 
The statistic, often cited, is that 10 years aga 90% of closed head injury (CHI) 
victims died. Today, 90% survive. Each year there are about 500,000 new brain 
injury victims in the United States; each year, 75,000 or 100,000 victims of 
traumatie brain injury (TBI) are left with significant disability (Kraus, 1987). 
As we have learned more about the neurobehavioral consequences of severe 
head injury, we have also learned to appreciate the milder but similar consequences 
of mild head injury. People who have survived severe head injuries are around to 
tell what it is like, and they tell us what the victims of mild head injuries have been 
saying all along. This is a difference in degree, obviously, but not a difference in 
kind. A few years ago, victims of "postconcussion syndrome" were thought to be 
hypochondriacs,  or "compensation  neurotics."  Now we  appreciate  that  their 
problems are real. The second reason why the number ofTBI patients is increasing 
is that we have learned what the neuropsychiatric consequences of "mild" brain 
injury really are. 
The  problems  of  mild  head  injury  victims  have  been  documented  in 
epidemiologie studies (Colohan et al., 1986; Rimel et al., 1981; Rutherford et al., 
1979; Gronwall and Wrightson, 1974; Alves et al. , 1986; Barth et al., 1983). 
Research with laboratory animals has confirmed that comparatively mild injuries 
can have lasting neuropathic sequelae, that neural tissue can be seriously damaged, 
or even destroyed, by comparatively mild trauma to the head (e.g., lane et al. , 1982). 
Until recently, the only professionals with any interest in TBI were the clinical 
neuropsychologists, and until recently they were a small, unimportant group of 
specialists within psychology. Their clinical work was largely confined to the 
Veterans Hospitals, where they worked with the victims of battlefield injuries. 
There would be a spate of new head injury research after every war; for example, 
the work of Kurt Goldstein after World War I, and that of Alexander Luria and 
William Lishman after World War 11.