Resident & Fellow Section

Clinical Reasoning: Episodes of Uncontrollable Crying in a 52-Year-Old Man With a Sphenopetroclival Tumor

  • Özdemir, Zeynep1
  • Kovac, Stjepana2
  • Stummer, Walter1
  • Müther, Michael1

  • 1

    Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Münster, Germany; and

  • 2

    Department of Neurology, University Hospital Münster, Germany.
Correspondence Dr. Özdemir [email protected]

Submitted and externally peer reviewed. The handling editor was Resident & Fellow Section Editor Katherine Fu, MD.

Neurology 105(2), July 22, 2025. | DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000213847

A 52-year-old man presented with progressive gait disturbances. MRI demonstrated a large extra-axial tumor in the cerebellopontine angle compressing the brainstem and resulting in hydrocephalus. While taking the patient's history, episodes of uncontrollable crying with sudden onset occurred multiple times. In this case report, we present and discuss the differential diagnoses of episodes of uncontrollable crying without emotional affect in adults and the possible underlying etiology.

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