ArticleJournal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry = Journal de l'Academie canadienne de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent2022
Rapid Onset Functional Tic-Like Disorder Outbreak: A Challenging Differential Diagnosis in the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Article in Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry = Journal de l'Academie canadienne de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Tourette syndrome.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2026Review
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Pediatric Neuropsychiatric Disorders: A Retrospective Study at a Single Center for Child Neurology and Psychiatry.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Differentiating tics and functional tic-like behaviours in children and young people: personal and family mental health profiles and their clinical implications.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Update on the Pathophysiology and Management of Tics.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2026Review
- Functional Movement Disorder: Evolving Mechanisms, Diagnostic Precision, and Personalized Multidisciplinary Care.Movement disorders clinical practice · 2025Review
- Functional Tic-like Behaviors: From the COVID-19 Pandemic to the Post-Pandemic Era.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- What are the Key Phenomenological Clues to Diagnose Functional Tic-Like Behaviors in the Pandemic Era?Movement disorders clinical practice · 2024Article
- Time is ticking for TikTok tics: A retrospective follow-up study in the post-COVID-19 isolation era.Brain and behavior · 2024Article
- Premonitory Urge in Patients with Tics and Functional Tic-like Behaviors.Movement disorders clinical practice · 2024Article
- Functional Tic-Like Behaviors: A Common Comorbidity in Patients with Tourette Syndrome.Movement disorders clinical practice · 2024Article
- Have We Forgotten What Tics Are? A Re-Exploration of Tic Phenomenology in Youth with Primary Tics.Movement disorders clinical practice · 2023Article
- Integrated cognitive behavioral intervention for functional tics (I-CBiT): case reports and treatment formulation.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- Long COVID as a functional somatic symptom disorder caused by abnormally precise prior expectations during Bayesian perceptual processing: A new hypothesis and implications for pandemic response.SAGE open medicine · 2023Review
- Persons.Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry = Journal de l'Academie canadienne de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries have observed an unexpected increase in the number of adolescents and young adults presenting with rapid onset functional tic-like behaviours after being exposed to social media content of others displaying a similar pattern of functional tics. Many of these patients have been referred to Movement Disorders Clinics with misdiagnoses of late-onset refractory Tourette Syndrome after failing different pharmacological treatments for tics. Tourette Syndrome is a well-known condition with clear clinical diagnostic criteria and which presents with the insidious onset of simple motor and phonic tics in a rostro-caudal evolution starting in early childhood. Clinical and demographic aspects can differentiate rapid onset functional tic-like behaviours from Tourette Syndrome, including the former having abrupt and explosive presentation of severe symptoms, later age of onset, female gender predominance, lack of suppressibility, comorbid anxiety and depression, atypical premonitory urge and history of exposure to social media content displaying tic-like behaviours. This new presentation of a functional neurological disorder may be explained in part by the relationship between social media exposure to tic-like behaviours, and maladaptive response to anxiety caused by life stressors (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic), especially in young individuals. Rapid onset functional tic-like behaviours may be considered a spreading neuropsychiatric disorder that is potentially fostered by the psychosocial impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Identifiers
35919901PMC9275373W4289785804What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.