THREE YOUNG PERSONS WITH PROBLEMS
OF REVERSE HALF-BRAIN DOMINANCE
Renato COCCHI, a neurologist and a medical psychologist.
Abstract.
Three new
cases of troubles of half-brain dominance are presented. They refer to a
13-years-old girl, to a 17-years-old male, and to a young woman aging 27. All
they feature a definite psychiatric illness, respectively an
obsessive-compulsive syndrome, an attention deficit disorder with hyperkinesys,
and a cyclic psychosis.
Troubles
of half-brain dominance can have elicited the not accepted intrusive negative
thinking, in the young girl, the opposite behaviour in the young man, the opposite
behaviour in the young woman who percepts it as issued from a second and
negative personality.
Which
extent half-brain dominance troubles are linked but independent to a
psychiatric illness that verges to a psychosis, or are its concomitant causes,
or are its prelude and companions, are all questions without any answer, at
least now.
Key
words: Reverse brain; dominance; psychiatric illness; young people.
The report of new cases where we can detect troubles of half-brain dominance
represents a support to the theoretical research in this field. (Cocchi, 1994).
After the
first case of a woman with the diagnosis of a schizo-affective psychosis
(Cocchi, 1996), a Down syndrome girl followed (Cocchi, 1998), then a man
46-years old (Cocchi 2001) and a girl with Smith-Magenis syndrome (Cocchi,
2001). One very curious public case was reported on News.
This new
report deals with three new cases with problems of reverse brain dominance, a
prepubertal girl, a teen-ager male and a young adult woman.
Casuistry.
Case
1: Girl, thirteen
years old at the first consultation.
She has
an obsessive-compulsive disorder, washing type, and has bad thoughts referring
to the devil. When asked: Say me the opposite of Red, she answered: White.
Often she
is crying, shakes her head and spits, or is screaming. She shakes her head for
saying: Not and so uses to drive out her bad thoughts. There is intrusive
thinking.
She
continuously repeats that she will soon die, and she has fear to die of
pesticides poisoning. She thinks to be ugly and that she shall never have a
boyfriend. There are prosecutory ideas.
At school
she has better results in humanities. Now she suffers from cold, uses to have
cold hands and feet and she is feeling better in summer. She normally likes
sweet things, nearly dislikes the meat or cube broth. Her bowel runs regularly
or with some constipation, she does not have menses. She has difficulties in
falling asleep.
Born from
premature delivery, with 2800g birthweight, she did not suffer from any
respiratory distress nor pathological neonatal jaundice. In the first year of
life she did not sleep, has GI problems and used crying without any apparent
reason.
Case
2: Young man, 17
years old at the first consultation.
He has
school learning problems, and he failed the first year of the junior high
school as well as the first year of the high school. Now he is attending a
private school with the aim to make up for the failed years. Being
hyperkinetic, in the classroom he has an attention deficit and uses to disturb
his classmates.
The
mother denies pregnancy and delivery complications, the same for
neurovegetative symptoms in the first year of life. Nevertheless, he was
bedwetting till 5-6 years of life, and he was speaking during his sleep,
showing also episodes of pavor nocturnus.
He is
going bed very late, because he uses going out every evenings, and so he wakes
up closely to noon. He drinks much beer and three times he get drunk. As for
diet, he tastes the salted ones, but he normally likes sweets and meat broth,
although he usually does not eat broth since it is rarely made in his family.
When he
is early got up he does not have any hungry. Some fits of cholic spasms were
reported. He does not stand the light up, but he is well with noise or mess. He
has armpit sweating. In sporting, he thinks to possess quickly reflexes.
Perhaps he has intrusive thinking. A EEG check showed trains of sharp waves in
right temporal-occipital area.
He has
provoking attitudes and opposite behaviour. When asked: Say me the opposite of
Red, he answered: [Dark] blue. He suddenly needs to blaspheme or to say dirty
words. When at home, he has aggression against the objects and sometimes
against the parents too. Moreover he had unmotivated episodes of destroying
personal effects like cutting his clothes or t-shirts, or destroying his Playstation
™.
He is
aware that something is going wrong and he is willing to take drugs.
Case
3: Young woman, a
university student, 27 years old at first consultation.
Since one
year she is taking lithium, like her mother did, and thinks that lithium helps
her to study. In past she had clear manic episodes where, beyond other
symptoms, it was a compulsion to spend money.
During
her menses she has euphoric mood variations. She believes to be prosecute.
Sometimes she has reactive temper tantrums with fits of destroying anything.
She
admits of smoking too much, has mental concentration troubles, suffers from the
heat, has low blood tension and excess sweating, in past she had low red blood
cells.
She likes
sweet things. Now she has good sleep. Sometimes she shows opposite behaviour.
When asked: Say me the opposite of Red, she answered: White. In her opinion,
her mind contains two persons, a positive one and a negative one.
At home
had heavy arguments with her mother and her sister, besides the aggression to
the boyfriend. When under stress, has head sharp pain.
Her EEG
showed signs of irritability from previous suffering.
Discussion.
All three
persons have opposite thoughts or sound opposite behaviour, and two of them out
of three answered White, when asked: Say me the opposite of Red. White is the
opposite of Black, and depressed persons usually answer: Black, at the same
question.
Opposite
thoughts or sound opposite behaviour does not appear as isolated symptoms, but
they stay in a condition leading to a precise psychiatric diagnosis. In the
first case, we can speak of an Obsessive-Compulsive Syndrome, in the second one
there is an Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity. Moreover, in the
third case there is a clear Cyclic Psychosis, Depressive type, with short manic
phases.
All three
persons adopt compensatory behaviours. The first one, the girl, shakes her head
and spits, or is screaming. She shakes her head to drive out her bad thoughts.
In the second
case, the alcohol abuse is a previewed exit of the ADDH and compensates the
mood alteration.
Needs to
blaspheme or to say dirty words seem compensatory symptoms too. The same
happens for aggression against the objects and sometimes against his parents.
In the
third case even quarrelsomeness and aggression against her family members and
the boyfriend are present.
In the
third case even quarrelsomeness and aggression against her family members and
the boyfriend are present.
We can
clearly see depressive modification of the mood in the first case, and they are
so in the third case by definition. In the second case depression does not
evidently appear. Nevertheless, the answer Blue, as the opposite of the Red,
and the alcohol abuse could signal a depression mainly related to the body. The
young man does not have some awareness of it until now.
As for
psychopathological antecedents in infancy, with alteration of stress
thresholds, there is a precise report as prematurity in the first case. In the
second case the mother denied anyone but symptoms such as ADDH, bedwetting and
pavor nocturnus lead to infer them with high probability. The third case lacks
of any report, but some antecedents cannot be surely excluded (EEG indicating
previous suffering.)
Opposite
behaviours of these three persons have precise features but different.
In the
young girl there are negative thoughts, experienced as extraneous, against
which she tries to react.
The young
man has opposite behaviours as provoking the others and aggression with
episodes of unmotivated destroying personal effects.
The young
woman is aware of her double feelings - she thinks that her mind contains two
persons, a positive one and a negative one - which drive to opposite behaviour.
Two out of three persons plainly feel these opposite symptoms or behaviours as
something extraneous.
In the
first and the third cases psychotic traits are present, as prosecutory ideas.
Conclusions.
These
three new cases of troubles of half-brain dominance feature a definite psychiatric
illness, respectively an obsessive-compulsive syndrome, an attention deficit
disorder with hyperkinesys, and a cyclic psychosis.
These
troubles can have elicited the not accepted intrusive negative thinking, in the
young 13-years-old girl, the opposite behaviour in the 17-years-old man, the
opposite behaviour in the young 27-years-old woman who percepts it as issued
from a second and negative personality.
Which
extent half-brain dominance troubles are linked but independent to a
psychiatric illness that verges to a psychosis, or are its concomitant causes,
or are its prelude and companions, are all questions without any answer, at
least now.
The field
we are foreseeing deserves high interest because it seems to prelude to a
switch from the psychopathology of some psychiatric disturbs towards
neurological or neuropsychopatological involvements.
References.
Cocchi R.: Defective hemispheric dominance and cognitive
behaviour: Speculative considerations. lt. J.
lntellect. lmpair. 1994, 7: 19-27.
Cocchi R.: lntrusive
opposite emotional thinking in a chronic "schizoid-affective" woman.
A stabilízed ínverse half-brain dominance of a specific function?
lt. J. lntellect. lmpair. 1996, 9: 163-168.
Cocchi R.: Opposite
half-brain dominance of specific functions? Another case in a Down child under
drug therapy It. J. lntelled. lmpair. 1998. 11:
151-156
Cocchi R.: Temporary
reverse dominance of some brain function in a man aged forty-six.
On www.reversebrain.org, 2001
Cocchi R.: A girl aged
ten with Smith-Magenis syndrome and possible reverse brain dominance of some
brain functions. On www.reversebrain.org, 2001
On Internet on January 2002. Copyright by Renato Cocchi, 2002.
Author's address: Dr Renato Cocchi, via
Rabbeno, 3
42100 Reggio
Emilia
renatococchi@libero.it