Abstract

The ability to act voluntarily is fundamentally important to humans, yet it can be impaired by many neurological conditions. These can lead to several disorders of volition, affecting the control of voluntary action and the sense of agency. This chapter considers three different groups of neurological disease: movement disorders, dementia, and focal brain lesions. These conditions can cause involuntary movements, apraxia, automatic behaviors, alien limb, or anarchic hand—all reflecting different abnormalities in the awareness and control of actions. Historically, these clinical phenomena have enabled a detailed mapping of the functional anatomy of volitional control. This chapter shows how recent developments in cognitive neuroscience have been used to study agency in neurological conditions. It also illustrates how brain imaging has provided new insights into awareness of, and attention to, action in neurological disease.