Some interictal peculiarities of the orienting reaction in "idiopathic" epilepsy
Rogozea, R.; Florea-Ciocoiu, F.
Neurologie et Psychiatrie 19(2): 97-109
1981
ISSN/ISBN: 0259-6326 PMID: 7291930 Document Number: 178247
An electrographic study was made of the somatic, autonomic and EEG components of the orienting reaction elicited by a repetitive auditory stimulus, performed in 42 patients with idiopathic epilepsy and 21 normal subjects. The orienting reaction was usually more intense in epileptics than in control subjects. The degree of intensification depended on the interictal features of the EEG activity. Habituation of the 3 components of the orienting reaction was, as a rule, harder to obtain in epileptics. The autonomic component showed the most outstanding disturbance in habituation. In epileptics, both with and without psychological deficiency, there are interictal disorders of nervous reactivity which can be detected by testing the orienting reaction and its habituation.