Am J Psychiatry 1976; 133:782-785
Copyright © 1976 by American Psychiatric Association
Personality disorder and parietal lobe dysfunction
PC Horton
An inability to relate transitionally is a major feature of personality
disorder. The developmental independence of transitional relatedness from
verbal-symbolic growth, its orienting function, and the nature of its
visual and tactile components support the conclusion that it is a function
of the nondominant parietal lobe. Therefore it can be hypothesized that
dysfunction of this area is the cerebral analogue of personality disorder.
The fact that unawareness of illness ("anosognosia") in conjunction with
grossly intact intellectual function is common to both personality disorder
and minor parietal lobe dysfunction further supports this hypothesis.
