An action current and reflex time study of psychiatric and neurologic cases

Evidence seems to indicate rather definitely that the higher cortical centers dominate the activity of the lower centers and that a hyper- or hypo-activity of the former results in a hypo- or hyper-activity of the latter. The aim of this present study is to determine whether this relationship between higher and lower centers was similarly modified in a wider variety of psychiatric and neurologic cases. For this purpose a number of unselected cases were used, representing both the organic and the so-called functional types of disorder. Not only were the reflex times determined, but records of the action currents incident to the voluntary contraction of the muscle group involved in the reflex contraction were secured. This permitted a comparison of both the gross qualitative and quantitative features of the action currents produced by voluntary and reflex innervation. A total of 66 individuals were used, a majority of whom were patients in the Psychopathic Hospital of the University of Iowa. The result shows that the reflex time as given is the average of all reflexes secured from the subject, usually five or more. In the determination of reflex frequency the number of peaks, regardless of their extent, in the action current discharge was counted throughout the entire duration of the volley and the frequency per sec. calculated from the result. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)