hypergraphia

English

Noun

hypergraphia (uncountable)

1. (psychiatry) A behavioural condition characterised by an intense desire to write, associated with changes in the temporal lobes due to epilepsy or chemical changes.
   • 1994, Thomas J. Csordas, “12: Words from the Holy People: a case study in cultural phenomenology”, in Thomas J. Csordas, editor, Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self, page 280:

     Two features of the interictal behavior syndrome are relevant: hypergraphia or the tendency to write compulsively and often repetitively, and verbosity or loquaciousness, the tendency to be overly talkative, rambling, and circumstantial in speech.

   • 1996, Michael R. Trimble, Biological Psychiatry‎^[1], page 279:

     There is some suggestion that hypergraphia is associated with non-dominant hemisphere temporal lobe disturbances (Trimble, 1986c).

   • 2009, Joseph M. Tonkonogy, Antonio E. Puente, Localization of Clinical Syndromes in Neuropsychology and Neuroscience, page 559:

     Two cases of mania and hypergraphia in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy were reported by Sanders and Mathews (1994). In the first case, a 58-year-old right-handed man suffered a ruptured right middle cerebral artery aneurism, which required a craniotomy. During interictal periods, the patient demonstrated hypergraphia, as well as several episodes of alternating manic and mildly depressive phases.

Related terms

• hypergraphic

Translations

behavioural condition

• Finnish: hypergrafia

See also

• hypergraphy