Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. Interactions with other neuropsychiatric disorders

Gilles de la Tourette syndrome is a neuropsychiatric disease with a childhood onset below age 16, characterized by chronic involuntary movements, obsessions, compulsions, utterances, echolalia, coprolalia and aggressive behavior symptoms. Two unique case histories are described in this report, one with an intercurrent history of primary anorexia nervosa and the other with rheumatic encephalitis. They were successfully treated; the former with chlorimipramine, and the latter with combination of L-tryptophan, nicotinic acid, and pyridoxine HCl. These two cases illustrate the possibility that one neuropsychiatric syndrome may induce another during its evolution when the same anatomo-biochemical loci of the brain are involved.