[The painful leg and moving toe syndrome]

The paper reports a case of painful-legs-and-moving-toes syndrome in a 75-year-old woman who developed it after a paralytic ischias attack at the age of 70. The syndrome was characterized by persistent pains in distal parts of the legs and feet and constant involuntary flexion-extension wave-like toe movements. SSEP studies revealed a defect of conduction in high-speed myelinated fibers of the lumbo-sacral radices of both sides. A cortical motor potential corresponding to the toe hyperkinetic movement was present. It the base of the hyperkinesis a reflectory mechanism may underlie initiated from radiculo-spinal nociceptive systems disinhibited in consequence of the deficiency of inhibitory control from high speed rear column afferents. Neurophysiological data suggest participation of cerebral mechanisms in realization of the hyperkinesis.