Psychopathology and Hemispheric Dysfunction: A Review

Abstract

In the past 15 years, investigators have attempted to relate psychiatric disorders to our developing knowledge about the asymmetrical organization of the cerebral hemispheres. This paper summarizes the varied, limited, and often conflicting results.

The authors suggest that progress in this fascinating and potentially fruitful area will be improved by: a) more critical evaluation of the current literature with regard to its contradictions and to the techniques and theories utilized; b) systematic study of carefully diagnosed, large groups of patients; c) concurrent attempts to identify and carefully assess unusual patients; d) control of laterality measures for drug effects, institutionalization, and such cognitive and affective states as anxiety, depression, paranoia, and psychosis; and e) validation of the localizing value of neuropsychological tests in psychiatric patients by the study of previously diagnosed psychiatric patients with acquired focal brain disease.