Cenesthesia And Cenestopathy

CENESTHESIA and CENESTHOPATHY. - By cenesthesia is meant general internal sensibility, that is, the complex of impressions that reach consciousness from our inner world, from the viscera and from all the tissues of the body; if the general functioning of the tissues is good, this complex manifests itself as a sense of well-being and good humour, whereas, if there is malfunctioning, imbalance, or a threat to the vitality of certain organs more essential to life, such as the heart, consciousness perceives a more or less serious malaise, even to the point of anxiety, anguish, and dread as of imminent death. Cenesthopathies are syndromes of altered cenesthesia, which for the most part originate in an alteration of nervous centres that collect internal sensations: thus, in the medulla there exists a centre of personal security, near or identical with the bulbar centre of the vagus, which may be acutely irritated, for example, by stimulation of the peripheral sensory fibres of the vagus in the heart, lungs, stomach, peritoneum, or in the medulla itself; and it then manifests itself in the subject’s consciousness as terror at threatened life, a profound malaise. It is also known that other centres, chiefly situated at the base of the brain, in the diencephalic region and in the optic thalami, are responsible for normal cenesthesia and for the regulation of estimìa, the subject’s fundamental affective tone or mood. Today the basal region of the brain is being investigated as the site of dysthymias (v.), of which cenesthopathies are, as it were, the fundamental alterations. Nicola Pende