Pathoanatomic correlation between poststroke pathological crying and damage to brain areas involved in serotonergic neurotransmission.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to correlate the severity of poststroke pathological crying with lesion size and location.

METHODS

Twelve selected stroke patients were ranked in terms of overall clinical severity of the syndrome of pathological crying, and the size and location of the stroke lesion(s) were determined by magnetic resonance imaging.

RESULTS

The patients with the clinically most severe pathological crying had relatively large bilateral pontine lesions without lesions in the hemispheres. The intermediate group had bilateral central hemispheric lesions, and the clinically least affected patients had mainly unilateral large subcortical lesions.

CONCLUSIONS

Poststroke pathological crying may be attributable to stroke-induced partial destruction of the serotonergic raphe nuclei in the brain stem or their ascending projections to the hemispheres.