Psychasthenia was a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety. The term is no longer in psychiatric diagnostic use, although it still forms one of the ten clinical subscales of the popular self-report personality inventories MMPI and MMPI-2. Signs and symptoms
The MMPI subscale 7 describes psychasthenia as akin to obsessive-compulsive disorder, and as characterised by excessive doubts, compulsions, obsessions, and unreasonable fears. The psychasthenic has an inability to resist specific actions or thoughts, regardless of their maladaptive nature. In addition to obsessive-compulsive features, the scale taps abnormal fears, self-criticism, difficulties in concentration, and guilt feelings. The scale assesses long-term (trait) anxiety, although it is somewhat responsive to situational stress as well. The psychasthenic has insufficient control over their conscious thinking and memory, sometimes wandering aimlessly and/or forgetting what they were doing. Thoughts can be scattered and take significant effort to organize, often resulting in sentences that do not come out as intended, therefore making little sense to others. The constant mental effort and characteristic insomnia induces fatigue, which worsens the condition. Symptoms can possibly be greatly reduced with concentration exercises and therapy, depending on whether the condition is psychological or biological. History
The term "psychasthenia" is historically associated primarily with the work of Pierre Janet, who divided the neuroses into the psychasthenias and the hysterias, discarding the term "neurasthenia" since it implied a neurological theory where none existed.
It is common for people with migraines to experience more than one type of aura during the migraine. Most people who have auras have the same type of aura every time.Auras can also be confused with sudden onset of panic, panic attacks or anxiety attacks, which creates difficulties in diagnosis. The differential diagnosis of patients who experience symptoms of paresthesias, derealization, dizziness, chest pain, tremors, and palpitations can be quite challenging. Seizures
An epileptic aura is the consequence of the activation of functional cortex by abnormal neuronal discharge. In addition to being a warning sign for an impending seizure, the nature of an aura can give insight into the localization and lateralization of the seizure or migraine.The most common auras include motor, somatosensory, visual, and auditory symptoms. The activation in the brain during an aura can spread through multiple regions continuously or discontinuously, on the same side or to both sides.Auras are particularly common in focal seizures. If the motor cortex is involved in the overstimulation of neurons, motor auras can result. Likewise, somatosensory auras (such as tingling, numbness, and pain) can result if the somatosensory cortex is involved. When the primary somatosensory cortex is activated, more discrete parts on the opposite side of the body and the secondary somatosensory areas result in symptoms ipsilateral to the seizure focus.Visual auras can be simple or complex. Simple visual symptoms can include static, flashing, or moving lights/shapes/colors caused mostly by abnormal activity in the primary visual cortex.