Critical flicker frequency series effect in epileptic and in neurotic patients. II. Difference in the variation range...

In a previous study (1970) a lowering of the CFFSE (Critical Flicker Frequency Series Effect) level from morning to noon was shown. In a group of 18 neurotic subjects 17--34 years of age, an opposite learning effect in the CFFSE level variation, increasing from the first day of examinations to the third one and in a group of 17 epileptic subjects of similar age a decrease of the same was observed. The recent study has corroborated the findings in 195 neurotic and 73 epileptic patients of the same age groups with the following additions. The "negative" learning effect of the epileptics proved to be more intensive in females than in males. The contrast in both positive and negative learning effects between neurotic and epileptic males of 17--34 age was most accentuated in the forenoon. Deviations in the variation range ratios of continuous and intermittent CFF series between the two groups occurred in each age group. The average variation of this ratio in 855 subjects with neurosis, epilepsy and some other diseases seems to point to the occurrence of systematic differences in the pathophysiological function of the brain, changing from organic cerebral lesions through neurosis to organ neuroses.