Familial benign recurrent cranial nerve palsies

Abstract

A family is reported in which all known members (seven) of three generations who have reached the age of 40 years have developed pareses of the oculomotor, abducens and/or facial nerves, separately or combined, on one or both sides, often recurrent and with remission over the course of months. Several of the patients have been studied intensively during hospital admissions, without any aetiological explanation of the symptoms being forthcoming. The theory is put forward that the family might have an inherited predisposition to abnormal microvascularization of the cranial nerves.