Vasomotor Disturbances Resulting From Cortical Lesions

Circulatory disturbances accompanying hemiplegia have frequently been observed and recorded, but the functional significance of such vasomotor changes has not been sufficiently appreciated. Associated with the motor paresis which follows a lesion of the internal capsule or of the precentral cortex one often notes flushing and edema of the affected extremities accompanied by a change in the temperature of the skin. Many authors have attributed such changes to the peripheral concomitants of the motor paresis, but during the past eighty years an important body of evidence has accumulated which indicates that these vasomotor disturbances are actually cortical in origin. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE In 1867 Chevallier1published a thesis entitled "De la paralysie des nerfs vasomoteurs dans l'hémiplégie." He said that Gubler in 1856 was the first to report a case of hemiplegia with associated changes in temperature. In 1863 Brown-Séquard reported a case of hemiplegia in which the