Automatism

Clinic

• Non-consciously generated activities and mostly simple repetitive movements like smacking the lips or more complex activities such as attempts to pick up something.

• It is a set of brief unconscious behaviors, typically at least several seconds or minutes.
• This type of automatic behavior often occurs in certain types of epilepsy, such as complex partial seizures in those with temporal lobe epilepsy,

Variations

• Simple gestures, such as finger rubbing, lip smacking, chewing, or swallowing, or
  • More complex actions, such as sleepwalking behaviors
  • Speech, which may or may not be coherent or sensible. The subject may or may not remain conscious otherwise throughout the episode.
• Conscious subjects may be fully aware of their other actions at the time, but unaware of their automatism.
• In some more complex automatisms, the subject enters into the behaviors of sleepwalking while fully awake until it starts. In these episodes, which can last for longer periods of time, the subject proceeds to engage in routine activities such as cooking, showering, driving a familiar route, or even conversation.
• Following the episode, the subject regains consciousness, often feeling disoriented, and has no memory of the incident.