Antônio Austregésilo Rodrigues de Lima: Founding father of neurology in Brazil

Antonio Austregésilo Rodrigues de Lima (1876-1960), the founding father of Brazilian neurology and a conceptual father of Brazilian neurosurgery, occupied a unique position in the early development of movement disorder research. In 1912, Austregésilo expanded the reflexogenic zone of pyramidal signs beyond the plantar response, broadening the clinical understanding of the Babinski phenomenon. In 1924, he described a case of hemiparesis and hemichorea associated with a caudate nucleus lesion, proposing a regulatory role for the striatum and offering an early anatomoclinical interpretation of striatal motor regulation. In 1928, he proposed a new classification of dystonia, emphasized its possible organic basis, and documented what appears to be the first detailed case of posttraumatic dystonia. In this article, we analyze and revisit his contributions based on original publications between 1912 and 1928. These observations demonstrate that he addressed concepts that would later become central to movement-disorder neurology, including the concept of functional balance within the extrapyramidal system and the role of neurotransmitters in motor control.