Pyramidal signs

Pyramidal signs indicate that the pyramidal tract is affected at some point in its course. Pyramidal tract dysfunction can lead to various clinical presentations such as spasticity, weakness, slowing of rapid alternating movements, hyperreflexia, and a positive Babinski sign.

The presence of these phenomena is nearly always connected with hyperreflexia and some authors think that we can not count them as a pathological reactions at all. Their existence on lower extremity is more serious that on the upper ones. The most common reason for irritative phenomena is a lesion of a central motoneuron, but in the presence of asymmetrical findings then a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis should be considered.

Pyramidal signs occur as a normal phenomena until the age of 2, when the myelinization is finished, and so under this age they aren't considered pathological.