Abstract
The alien hand syndrome (AHS) is a fascinating movement disorder. Patients with AHS experience one of their limbs as alien, which acts autonomously and performs meaningful movements without being guided by the intention of the patient. Here, we report a case of a 74-years old lady diagnosed with an atypical Parkinson syndrome by possible corticobasal degeneration. The patient stated that she could not control her right hand and that she felt like this hand had her own life. We tested the patient for ownership illusions of the hands and general tactile processing. Results revealed that when blindfolded, the patient recognized touch to her alien hand only if it was presented separated from touch to the other hand (bilateral asynchronous touch). Delivering touch synchronously to both the alien and the healthy hand resulted in failure of recognizing touch to the alien hand (bilateral synchronous touch). Thus, AHS here co-existed with right-sided tactile extinction and is one of only very few cases in which the alien hand was felt on the right side. We discuss the results in the light of recent research on AHS.
Highlights
alien hand syndrome (AHS) is a bizarre and very rare neurological movement disorder first described by Goldstein (1908)
The trials were applied in a random order. For both classic RHI and somatic rubber hand illusion (SRI) the patient failed to feel any illusions that are known for the majority of healthy subjects
We found that when touch applied to both the left healthy hand and the right alien hand in an asynchronous way, the patient told us to feel this touch clearly on the alien hand as well as on the healthy hand
Summary
AHS is a bizarre and very rare neurological movement disorder first described by Goldstein (1908). Patients with AHS experience one of their limbs as alien, which acts autonomously and performs goal-directed movements that are not guided by the intention of the patient. The patient is aware of the discrepancies between intentions and the actions of the hand. Often he or she tries to prevent the hand from moving by grasping it firmly with the other hand. Patients with AHS describe the experience of their alien limb as if someone else moves the alien hand (Goldstein, 1908). Patients are aware that the limb is still part of their body and do not deny the ownership of their alien limb when being asked (in contrast to cases of asomatognosia; Goldstein, 1908; Biran and Chatterjee, 2004; Fitzgerald et al, 2007)
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