"Scared Stiff": Catatonia as an Evolutionary-Based Fear Response.
Abstract
Catatonia, long viewed as a motor disorder, may be better understood as a fear response, akin to the animal defense strategy tonic immobility (after G. G. Gallup & J. D. Maser, 1977). This proposal, consistent with K. L. Kahlbaum's (1874/1973) original conception, is based on similarities between catatonia and tonic immobility ("death feint") as well as evidence that catatonia is associated with anxiety and agitated depression and responds dramatically to benzodiazepines. It is argued that catatonia originally derived from ancestral encounters with carnivores whose predatory instincts were triggered by movement but is now inappropriately expressed in very different modern threat situations. Found in a wide range of psychiatric and serious medical conditions, catatonia may represent a common "end state" response to feelings of imminent doom and can serve as a template to understand other psychiatric disorders.
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Tonic immobility can be induced in animals without a cerebrum.
“Tonic immobility can be induced in animals without a cerebrum.93”
From Fear and the Defense Cascade (2015) · cites this paper as [93]
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- Authors
- Moskowitz, A. K.
- Affiliations
- University of Auckland (NZ)
- Corresponding author
- Moskowitz, Andrew K.
- Venue
- Psychological Review
- Published
- 2004
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 984-1002
- ISSN
- 0033-295X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1471
- OpenAlex
- W2080088941
- Cited by
- 207
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 0.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Review (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Electroconvulsive Therapy Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- catatonia, fear response, tonic immobility, evolutionary psychology, Kahlbaum, anxiety, agitated depression, benzodiazepines, threat response
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Behavior, Animal, Catatonia, Escape Reaction, Biological Evolution, Fear, Humans, Models, Psychological, Sociobiology
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