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Visually-evoked rooting, a fascinating primitive reflex

¹ Specialist Registrar in Neurology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK
² Consultant Neurologist, Mayday University Hospital, Thornton Heath, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr F Schon, Department of Neurology, Mayday University Hospital, London Road, Thornton Heath CR7 7YE, UK;
ctwork@blueyonder.co.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry carried a series of six articles on aspects of the neurological examination between 2002 and 2003 which, in some cases, highlighted how little is known about the scientific basis of certain routine clinical tests.¹ One such is the group of reflexes collectively known as "primitive reflexes", reviewed by Schott and Rossor,² which include the grasp, snout, palmomental, and rooting reflexes. They are usually associated with neurodegenerative diseases causing dementia and, as the authors point out, loosely linked to frontal lobe pathology, but their exact physiological and anatomical substrates are poorly understood.

The well known tactile-evoked rooting reflex is the movement of both lips towards the examiner’s finger when stroking the lateral side of the upper lip. However, there has been very little written about the related phenomenon of visually-evoked rooting.

THE PATIENT

A 70 year old man with a 10 year history of progressive cognitive . . . [Full text of this article]