Diagnostic implications of the B-mitten EEG pattern: relationship to primary and secondary affective dysregulation
Struve, F.A.; Klein, D.F.
Biological Psychiatry 11(5): 599-611
1976
ISSN/ISBN: 0006-3223 PMID: 971451 Document Number: 99275
Previous studies indicate that the B-Mitten EEG pattern is specific to psychiatric dysfunction and rarely encountered among normal control subjects. Our previous investigations have demonstrated a significant relationship between mittens and reactive as opposed to process schizophrenic disease. Re-analyses of mitten incidence in schizophrenics and nonschizophrenics suggests needed modification of our earlier B-Mitten-schizophrenia formulation. Present considerations indicate that the B-Mitten-reactive schizophrenia association is not primary but rather that the differential process-reactive schizophrenia mitten incidence may be a secondary epiphenomenon reflecting a more fundamental underlying process. Analyses are presented suggesting that the mitten dysrhythmia relates positively to dysphoric affective dysregulation in a manner which cuts across broad diagnostic boundaries. That the mitten pattern possibly suggests as yet unclarified subcortical dysfunction associated with symptoms of affective disturbance is a tentative hypothesis offered for consideration.