Echopraxia (also known as echokinesis) is the involuntary repetition or imitation of another person's actions. Similar to echolalia, the involuntary repetition of sounds and language, it is one of the echophenomena ("automatic imitative actions without explicit awareness"). It has long been recognized as a core feature of

Tourette syndrome Tourette syndrome (TS), or simply Tourette's, is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood or adolescence. It is characterized by multiple movement (motor) tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic. Common tics are blinkin ...

, and is considered a complex tic, but it also occurs in

autism spectrum Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...

disorders,

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

and

catatonia Catatonia is a complex syndrome most commonly seen in people with underlying mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder, or psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. People with catatonia exhibit abnormal movement and behaviors, wh ...

aphasia Aphasia, also known as dysphasia, is an impairment in a person's ability to comprehend or formulate language because of dysfunction in specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine, but aph ...

, and disorders involving the startle reflex such as latah. Echopraxia has also been observed in individuals with

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of Non-communicable disease, non-communicable Neurological disorder, neurological disorders characterized by a tendency for recurrent, unprovoked Seizure, seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of abnormal electrical activit ...

dementia Dementia is a syndrome associated with many neurodegenerative diseases, characterized by a general decline in cognitive abilities that affects a person's ability to perform activities of daily living, everyday activities. This typically invo ...

and

autoimmune disorders An autoimmune disease is a condition that results from an anomalous response of the adaptive immune system, wherein it mistakenly targets and attacks healthy, functioning parts of the body as if they were foreign organisms. It is estimated tha ...

; the causes of and the link between echopraxia and these disorders is undetermined. The

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

of the term is from Ancient Greek: " ἠχώ (ēkhō) from ἠχή (ēkhē "sound") and " πρᾶξις (praksis, "action, activity, practice)".

Characteristics

Echopraxia is the involuntary mirroring of an observed action. Imitated actions can range from simple motor tasks such as picking up a phone to violent actions such as hitting another person. Imitative learning and emulation of physical and verbal actions are critical to early development (up to the age of two or three), but when these behaviors become reactions rather than a means for learning, they are considered echophenomena (copying behaviors).

Causes

Echopraxia is a typical symptom of

but causes are not well elucidated. Frontal lobe animation

One theoretical cause subject to ongoing debate surrounds the role of the mirror neuron system (MNS), a group of neurons in the

inferior frontal gyrus The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG; also gyrus frontalis inferior) is the lowest positioned gyrus of the frontal gyri, of the frontal lobe, and is part of the prefrontal cortex. Its superior border is the inferior frontal sulcus (which divides it ...

(F5 region) of the brain that may influence imitative behaviors, but no widely accepted neural or

computational models A computational model uses computer programs to simulate and study complex systems using an algorithmic or mechanistic approach and is widely used in a diverse range of fields spanning from physics, engineering, chemistry and biology to economics ...

have been put forward to describe how mirror neuron activity supports cognitive functions such as imitation.

Diagnosis

There is no formal test for diagnosing echopraxia. It is easier to distinguish in individuals over the age of five, because younger children frequently imitate others' actions. Imitation can be divided into two types: imitative learning and automatic imitation. Imitative learning occurs when a person consciously mimics an observed action in order to learn the mechanism behind that action and perform it themselves. Babies begin copying movements soon after birth; this behavior begins to diminish around the age of three. Before that, it is not possible to diagnose echopraxia, because it is difficult to differentiate between imitative learning and automatic imitation. If the imitative behavior continues beyond infanthood, it may be considered echopraxia. Echopraxia may be more easily distinguished in older individuals, because their behaviors in relation to prior behaviors can be differentiated. They report feeling an uncontrollable urge to perform an action after seeing it being performed. Automatic behavior is occasionally present in healthy adults (for example, when a person observes someone yawning, he or she may do the same); these behaviors are not considered echopraxia.

References

{{autism Tourette syndrome symptoms of schizophrenia