“I swear it’s not Tourette’s!” - it is time to rethink coprolalia in Tourette syndrome
4 affiliations
- 1Department of Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School , ,
- 2Département de Neurologie, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital de La Pitié-Salpêtrière , ,
- 3Department of Pediatrics, Copenhagen University Hospital - Herlev and Gentofte , ,
- 4Evelina London Children’s Hospital, GSTT and Kings College London , ,
Abstract
Coprolalia is a relatively rare type of complex vocal tic in people with Tourette syndrome (TS). In the general population, however, it is believed that coprolalia is the most typical and common symptom resulting in the stereotype of TS as the “swearing disease”. Swearing, however, also occurs as a “normal” expression of negative emotions and thus occurs more often in people with impulse control problems. It is believed that there is a continuum reaching from voluntary to involuntary swearing. Besides coprolalia, in TS, coprophenomena may also occur in the form of motor tics, called copropraxia. Furthermore, other socially inappropriate behaviors have been described such as making socially inappropriate comments and actions, called Non Obscene Socially Inappropriate symptoms or NOSIS. Only recently, coprolalia has been identified as a core symptom in functional tic-like behaviors (FTLB), a relatively new and escalating presentation of a functional movement disorder (FMD). Today it is well-established that FTLB and TS represent two distinct clinical entities, although FTLB is a common comorbidity in TS. The overlap of diseases and disorders with the more incongruent presentations of FMD are well-established clinical concepts in other neurological disorders. This raises the clinically important question as to whether coprolalia as a complex tic can be differentiated at all from “coprolalia-like” words as FTLB. Here, we want to introduce a novel concept regarding the classification of coprolalia, copropraxia, and NOSIS. We propose that it is important to consider the presence of obscene and/or socially inappropriate words, behaviors and/or insults as being more supportive of FTLB or a combination of both TS plus comorbid FTLB as opposed to being considered to be complex tic phenomena, since coprolalia and copropraxia are rare in TS. Given what we know about FTLB today, the symptom construct of NOSIS is probably not a separate symptom entity in TS. We therefore suggest that NOSIS should be preferable considered as comorbid FTLB. We believe that this novel re-conceptualization will lead us toward some explanations around inconsistent findings related to coprophenomena in TS. Furthermore, it is of high clinical relevance, since it opens wider management and treatment strategies including psychological interventions for people suffering from coprolalia, copropraxia, and NOSIS and will hopefully prevent these patients from inappropriate or even harmful treatments including invasive surgical therapies when being mistakenly classified as severely affected and treatment resistant patients with TS.
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BibTeX
@article{mullervahl2026swear,
title = {{“I swear it’s not Tourette’s!” - it is time to rethink coprolalia in Tourette syndrome}},
author = {Kirsten R. Müller-Vahl and Christelle Nilles and Nanette Mol Debes and Natalia Szejko and Tammy Hedderly},
journal = {Frontiers in psychiatry},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1948442},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13672326},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - “I swear it’s not Tourette’s!” - it is time to rethink coprolalia in Tourette syndrome
AU - Kirsten R. Müller-Vahl
AU - Christelle Nilles
AU - Nanette Mol Debes
AU - Natalia Szejko
AU - Tammy Hedderly
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/02
JO - Frontiers in psychiatry
DO - 10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1948442
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13672326
AB - Coprolalia is a relatively rare type of complex vocal tic in people with Tourette syndrome (TS). In the general population, however, it is believed that coprolalia is the most typical and common symptom resulting in the stereotype of TS as the “swearing disease”. Swearing, however, also occurs as a “normal” expression of negative emotions and thus occurs more often in people with impulse control problems. It is believed that there is a continuum reaching from voluntary to involuntary swearing. Besides coprolalia, in TS, coprophenomena may also occur in the form of motor tics, called copropraxia. Furthermore, other socially inappropriate behaviors have been described such as making socially inappropriate comments and actions, called Non Obscene Socially Inappropriate symptoms or NOSIS. Only recently, coprolalia has been identified as a core symptom in functional tic-like behaviors (FTLB), a relatively new and escalating presentation of a functional movement disorder (FMD). Today it is well-established that FTLB and TS represent two distinct clinical entities, although FTLB is a common comorbidity in TS. The overlap of diseases and disorders with the more incongruent presentations of FMD are well-established clinical concepts in other neurological disorders. This raises the clinically important question as to whether coprolalia as a complex tic can be differentiated at all from “coprolalia-like” words as FTLB. Here, we want to introduce a novel concept regarding the classification of coprolalia, copropraxia, and NOSIS. We propose that it is important to consider the presence of obscene and/or socially inappropriate words, behaviors and/or insults as being more supportive of FTLB or a combination of both TS plus comorbid FTLB as opposed to being considered to be complex tic phenomena, since coprolalia and copropraxia are rare in TS. Given what we know about FTLB today, the symptom construct of NOSIS is probably not a separate symptom entity in TS. We therefore suggest that NOSIS should be preferable considered as comorbid FTLB. We believe that this novel re-conceptualization will lead us toward some explanations around inconsistent findings related to coprophenomena in TS. Furthermore, it is of high clinical relevance, since it opens wider management and treatment strategies including psychological interventions for people suffering from coprolalia, copropraxia, and NOSIS and will hopefully prevent these patients from inappropriate or even harmful treatments including invasive surgical therapies when being mistakenly classified as severely affected and treatment resistant patients with TS.
SN - 1664-0640
ER -