Affiliations: Department of Neuropsychiatry, University of
Birmingham and BSMHFT, Birmingham, UK | Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement
Disorders, Institute of Neurology, UCL, London, UK | Department of Mental Health Sciences, UCL, London,
UK | Department of Neurology, St George's Hospital and
Medical School, London, UK
Note: [] Corresponding author: Andrea Eugenio Cavanna, MD, PhD,
Department of Neuropsychiatry, Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS
Foundation Trust, The Barberry National Centre for Mental Health, 25 Vincent
Drive, Birmingham B15 2FG, UK. E-mail: andrea.cavanna@bsmhft.nhs.uk
Abstract: Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological condition first described
by Georges Gilles de la Tourette in 1885. TS was largely thought of as a rare
and bizarre condition until the 1960s, when the beneficial effects of
neuroleptics on tic symptoms led to an exponential increase in neuroscientific
research. Today TS is known to be a relatively common condition that is
frequently misdiagnosed due to a combination of its variable manifestation and
the waxing and waning of tic frequency and severity. Although there has been a
paucity of research on TS compared to other movement disorders, in recent years
TS has garnered increasing interest and has shown a number of novel and complex
sides, about which much is yet to be learnt. The present article discusses
where research has taken us thus far and where it is heading in all the major
facets of this fascinating condition.
