title: Developmental disorders of skin potential responses in mentally retarded children during nocturnal sleep.
abstract: Skin potential responses (SPRs) of 89 mentally retarded children were studied during their nocturnal sleep. Forty-three out of the 89 subjects showed more SPRs (type A) during NREM sleep than in REM sleep. The opposite was observed in 10 cases (type C), and 4 had evenly distributed SPRs during both sleep phases (type B). The remaining 32 subjects had mixed types AB (n = 19), AC (n = 6) or BC (n = 7). Types B and C (including the mixed type) were observed more frequently for subjects with low developmental quotient (DQ) and abnormal clinical EEGs than for those with high DQ and normal clinical EEGs. Since it has been well established that normal subjects of 3 months and over exhibit exclusively type A, SPRs may be used as an additional tool for the diagnostic assessment of mental retardation in early infancy.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*