Psychiatric symptoms and brain tumor.

Psychiatric symptoms may be the only clue to the presence of a brain tumor. Careful physical, neurologic and psychiatric examinations will reveal the diagnosis. Affective and schizophrenia-like psychoses are related to dysfunctions of the right and left hemispheres, respectively. Lesions of the temporal lobes commonly cause depression. Psychotropic medications may improve symptoms in the presence of tumor. There is no clinical method of localizing or excluding a brain tumor by its psychiatric manifestations.