Neurofunctional assessment of lateralized hemispheric asymmetries in affective illness

Performances of 59 affective patients, 59 schizophrenics and 59 normal controls on the Quality Extinction Test (QET), which has been proven to be valuable for detecting abnormal hemisphere functioning in neurological and psychiatric patients, are presented. Frequencies of the left and right extinctions of the affective patients did not exceed those of normal controls. Compared to schizophrenics, fewer affective patients had left and right extinctions and the number of these extinctions was significantly lower in affective patients. These results would indicate that affective patients do not differ from controls relative to lateralized cerebral malfunctioning as measured by the QET. The differences between affective and schizophrenic patients' QET performances may be explained by differences in the course and chronicity of the disease.