Abstract
Sixteen adolescents between 15 to 17 years of age with mental infantilism syndrome participated in the study. The data were compared with the control group including 10 mentally and neurologically healthy young subjects, secondary-school students in the 10th or 11th grades. The EEG was recorded monopolarly from 12 leads in the states of quiet wakefulness (closed eyes), on general activation (open eyes), when performing cognitive hemispheric-specialized tests, and when exposed to aversive sound stimulation. The studies showed that EEG spectral parameters could be regarded as the objective criteria of mental infantilism. In the baseline, the patients demonstrated the EEG characteristics typical of the earlier ontogenesis stage, i.e., a generalized increase in the spectral powers of Δ-, θ1-, θ2-, and α1-ranges and a decrease in the interhemispheric coherence in the frontal temporal region. When performing cognitive hemispheric-specialized tests, infantile patients were characterized by the insufficient differentiation of reactions to functional loads in terms of the frequency ranges, topography, and lateralization of changes, with the predominance of shifts in the θ2-range that is directly connected with nonspecific aspects of activation. On the presentation of sound stimulation, only the patients' group demonstrated an increase in the power of slow EEG ranges and interhemispheric coherence in the frontal temporal area. The results demonstrate the delayed formation of hemispheric specialization with a more retarded maturation of the nervous networks of the left hemisphere and the dysfunction of the frontal temporal regions of the brain.
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Kirenskaya-Berus, A.V., Lar'kina, E.G., Kondrashin, I.Y. et al. Neurophysiologial Study of the Hemispheric Organization of the EEG Spectrum in Mental Infantilism in Adolescents. Human Physiology 27, 686–692 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012977026738
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012977026738