A historical perspective of apraxia, from 1860 to 1935
A. García-Molina, J. Peña-Casanova
Neurosciences and History 2020;8(4):150-160
Type of article: REVIEW
AUTHORS
A. García-Molina, 1,2,3J. Peña-Casanova 4,5,6
1Institut Guttmann, Institut Universitari de Neurorehabilitació (UAB), Badalona, Spain.
2Fundació Institut d’Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol, Badalona, Spain
3Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
4Behavioural neurology research group. Fundación Institut Mar de Investigaciones Médicas (FIMIM), Barcelona, Spain.
5Psychiatric and Legal Medicine Department. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
6Behavioural Neurology and Dementia Unit. Hospital del Mar, Parc Salut Mar, Barcelona, Spain.
ABSTRACT
Introduction. Research into gestural disorders is typically associated with Liepmann. However, in the second half of the 19th century, Finkelnburg, Meynert, and Nothnagel also made significant contributions to this field. The aim of this study is to explore research conducted into gestural disorders during the period between 1860 and 1935.
Development. In 1870, Finkelnburg proposed the term asymbolia to refer to the loss of the ability to understand and intentionally use concepts by means of acquired linguistic or gestural symbols. The following decade, in 1887, Nothnagel, taking Meynert’s associationist model of brain organisation as a reference, proposed that gestural disorders originate in what he describes as mind palsy. The term apraxia was used for the first time in Steinthal’s book Abriss der Sprachwissenschaft, but Liepmann, Pick, and Kleist were the main authors to synthesise the clinical, anatomical, and psychopathological aspects of apraxia. In the 1920s, Morlaas and Grünbaum resumed the 19th-century line of reasoning associating gestural disorders with perceptual disorders.
Conclusions. Between 1860s and 1930s, the study of gestural disorders underwent extraordinary conceptual development, marked by the close association between perception and gestuality. The contributions of Liepmann and the school of Wernicke sought to organise a chaos of terminology and taxonomy.
KEYWORDS
Agnosia, apraxia, asymbolia, gestuality, mind palsy, perception
Neurosciences and History 2020;8(4):150-160
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