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Feb 8, 2010, 10:24pm

Addspouse :: Beyond Addspouse :: Controlling behavior, abuse, anger :: limbic rage

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Topic: limbic rage (Read 2,866 times)

Diane
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limbic rage
« Thread Started on May 5, 2005, 9:44am »

This article is about Episodic Dyscontrol Syndrome, or Limbic Rage. It is a seizure-like disorder in the limbic system of the brain that causes unpredictable and often unprovoked rages. It is (often) underestimated (in terms of the number of people who have it), understudied, undertreated and untreated, unaccepted (by many professionals), misunderstood, and mislabeled.

A rage can occur with little or no provocation or warning. Small changes in the environment can provoke massive repercussions. Some are preceded by a mounting dysphoria that may last for a period of hours or days. The patient may experience hallucinations, either olfactory, gustatory, visual, auditory, or multimodal before a rage.

Frequently the family members may recognize the patient's aura or anxiety state as a danger signal. Families of the patients typically complain that they live in constant fear of inadvertently incurring wrath, while the patient lives with a fear of losing control that may verge on a panic state.

The rages themselves last from a few minutes to an hour or two, during which the patient is irrational and unreachable. Any attempts to soothe the patient with words or actions are unsuccessful. The (patient) display(s) a complete change of personality. Attacks are so distinctive they are easy to distinguish from conventional ill temper. Very often they have a "primitive" quality to them. Limbic rage victims frequently kick, spit, gouge, claw, and use obscene language. It is often marked by great strength and speed, making escape difficult. In many, a vestige of self-control remains. This may take the form of diverting the rage away from others onto inanimate objects or the self.

If the patient is left alone, the attack usually ends in exhaustion and/or sleep, and sometimes with a sense of relief. Upon waking, there is usually an imperfect memory of what has been said and done. However, most patients are filled in on the details of their actions by others, and as a result, suffer a great deal of guilt and remorse.

How does rage differ from anger? Anger is goal oriented in that it addresses a specific issue. It is a proportional response to surrounding stimulus and is terminated by the achievement or relinquishment of the goal. Anger can be expressed verbally and dealt with rationally.

Anger has the potential to be resolved in a non-violent manner, whereas rage almost universally expresses itself with violence.

Rage is disproportionate to, and not necessarily triggered by, an outside stimulus. It is more intense than a display of anger. It cannot be dealt with rationally or expressed verbally and, because it is not goal directed, it does not have a predictable conclusion.

Minimal brain dysfunction (MBD) seems to be a major contributing factor in cases of limbic rage. Injuries to the limbic system structures in humans are often caused by a lack of oxygen, particularly at birth, by head injuries, and certain infections.

There may be a familial or hereditary component to this syndrome in some cases. Patients may show a variety of anatomical defects which include vascular malformations and hematomas, patches of gliosis in the cortex and white matter, ectopic groups of neurons in the white matter, and multiple patches of cortical dysplasis.

There are several factors that can contribute to episodic dyscontrol. (Patients with) this problem seem to be particularly sensitive to lack of rest, alcohol consumption, and hormonal changes. These environmental stresses affect the body's ability to filter information and can induce synchronized electrical activity within the limbic system, thus setting the system up for a potential attack.

Some women reported that their attacks of rage appeared only, or mainly, in the premenstrual week. They became depressed, paranoid, unreasonable, and aggressive. In these cases, the symptoms cleared up with the onset of menstruation.

There are many problems with diagnosing limbic rage. It appears that minimal brain dysfunction plays a major role in this syndrome, but the traditional adult form of neurological examination has to be expanded to include special tests for the so-called soft signs of MBD, as it is insensitive to many of the deficits found in adults.

Another technique for evaluating this disorder is the surface EEG. This has proven to be less than accurate in detecting "deep" electrical activity. When simultaneous depth and surface EEG recordings were performed, it was frequently observed that if a seizure occurred in the depth of the temporal lobe, the abnormal activity was usually not visible at surface recording sites. This would imply that some temporal lobe epileptics are read as normals on the clinical EEG report.

It is possible for a patient to go through a whole battery of tests and show "no abnormalities". Unfortunately, this does not mean that there is "no problem".

Limbic rage is very disruptive to the people who have it and to the people in their environment. It is also difficult to diagnose at this point in time. I conclude from this that many people who have it are not recognized as having it, are mislabeled as having character flaws or personality disorders, and subsequently go untreated. In this state they continue to wreak havoc on themselves, their families, and the people they come in contact with. Considering the effectiveness of treatment for this problem, I think that a heightened awareness of this condition in the medical community would go a long way to cut down the incidence of violence.
http://www.open.org/~nntc/page18.html

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