Partial Kluver-Bucy syndrome as a delayed manifestation of head injury

• Main Authors: P S Bhat, P K Pardal, R C Das
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2009-01-01
• Series: Industrial Psychiatry Journal
• Subjects: Kluver-Bucy syndrome; Traumatic brain injury; Neurobehavioural syndrome
• Online Access: http://www.industrialpsychiatry.org/article.asp?issn=0972-6748;year=2009;volume=18;issue=2;spage=117;epage=118;aulast=Bhat

After traumatic brain injury (TBI), the most disabling problems are generally related to neuropsychiatric sequelae, including personality change and cognitive impairment, rather than neurophysical sequelae. Kluver-Bucy syndrome (KBS) is a rare neurobehavioral condition, first described in 1937 as an experimental neurobehavioral syndrome in monkeys with bitemporal brain lesions. The syndrome in man was subsequently observed to be transient or permanent in a variety of neurodegenerative disorders and after traumatic, nontraumatic and infectious brain injury. However, partial KBS may occur in the absence of the classic bilateral temporal lesion, though rare. Pharmacological treatment of post-TBI neuropsychiatric sequelae consists of symptomatic, functional and hypothetical approaches. Specific pharmacological treatment consists of antipsychotics, anti-kindling anticonvulsants or a combination thereof. A case of partial KBS presenting as delayed manifestation of traumatic brain injury that improved with carbamazapine and antipsychotics is presented.