Thalamocortical dysrythmia is a syndrome discovered by Rodolfo Llinás, with his collaborators, which has fundamental consequences for the investigation of mental illness and neurological diseases.

Thalamocortical dysrythmia (TCD) is an alteration of the nervous activity between the thalamus and the cortex. Relative to the place in the thalamus and the cortex where the alteration appears, distant symptoms appear to the subject. Thus, neurological diseases such as epilepsy, tinnitus, central pain, parkinsonian tremors, and mental disorders such as depression, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia, are produced by a TDC to the patient. Illness and disorder TCDs differ in the place where they appear and the cause of onset. The TCD explains the existence of positive and negative symptoms, which are characteristic of the different diseases and disorders.

A TCD can appear due to different causes: genetic, environmental, physical damages, etc. For example, in the case of parkinsonian tremor, the death of dopamine-generating cells in the substantia nigra produces a TCD, while in the case of tinnitus, a physical extreme situation generates a TCD. Nowadays, TCD opens new lines of research for mental disorders and provides a new way for the scientific community to understand more deeply how the human brain works.

Bibliografía:

• R. Llinás, Ribary U., Jeanmonod D., Kronberg E., Mitra P.P., and others (1999): "Thalamocortical dysrhythmia: A neurological and neuropsychiatric syndrome characterized by magnetoencephalography" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. ;96: 15222-15227

• R. Llinás, and others (2001): "Thalamocortical dysrhythmia I. Functional and imaging aspects" Thalamus & Related Systems, Volume 1 , Issue 03 , pp 237-244

• D. Jeanmonod, R. Llinás, and others (2001): "Thalamocortical dysrhythmia II. Clinical and surgical aspects" Thalamus & Related Systems, Volume 1, Issue 03 , pp 245-254