Some electrophysiological observations in obsessional states.
Averaged evoked potentials were recorded from a group of obsessional patients and matched normal controls for three types of visual stimulation: passive monitoring of a light flash, a pattern consisting of gratings and a cognitive task involving discrimination of two similar shapes. As the complexity of information processing required by the tasks increased, differences in the evoked potentials of obsessionals became more marked. The main finding was of faster latency and reduced amplitude of the N220 component in the cognitive task. The relevance of this finding to a theory of obsessional disorder is discussed.
D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation