ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC STUDIES OF 1,000 SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS
HENRY S. COLONY M. D., and
STANLEY E. WILLIS M. D., LT., MC, USN.1
1 Chief of neuropsychiatry, U. S. Naval Hosp., Guam, Marianas.
The literature pertinent to the problem of whether or not schizophrenics are more likely to show "abnormal" or poorly organized records is briefly reviewed.
Data collected from 1,000 schizophrenic patients with an average age of 20.4 years are contrasted with a "control" group consisting of 474 patients without discernible neurological disease, who are nonpsychotic and in a comparable age group. This reveals that 5.0% of the schizophrenic records are "abnormal" by virtue of the presence of significant amounts of slow wave activity; 8.3% of the control group also have such abnormal records.
It is concluded that changes in the EEG can result from emotional perturbation and do not necessarily indicate support for an organic genetically oriented concept of schizophrenia. There appears to be no more significant abnormality in the EEG's of schizophrenics than in those of any other patients with nonorganic disturbance in the brain.
