[Electroencephalogram in congenital anophthalmia (author's transl)]

Dysgenesis of the eye produces occipital needle sharp spikes. Neither the age and maturational state of the eye nor the brain create the pathophysiologic conditions which give rise to needle sharp spikes. It seems rather that deafferentation of the visual cortex gives rise to an increase in its irritability which make it fire off in this special manner. Cannon and Rosenblueth presented evidence that, as a general rule, deafferented systems tend to become hyperexcitable.