Two biological rhythms of perception distinguishing between intact and relatively damaged brain function in man.

Abstract

A simple test of perception, the Critical Flicker Fusion threshold (CFF) was given successively for 20 mins. to 69 healthy subjects aged 7-63 and to 53 comparable neuropsychiatric patients. The latter could be divided into a functionally sick group and a group with brain damage. Auto-correlation analysis revealed significant sine-wave cycles of amplitude and ultradian frequency for the CFF mean scores and the CFF "Scatter* scores. Both cycles of recurrence showed frequencies which distinguished significantly between the total healthy subjects and the patients. Further analysis showed no difference between controls and emotionally sick patients (i.e. those with sociopathy, schizophrenia and manic depressive psychosis) but there was a highly significant difference between these three groups and patients with relatively damaged C.N.S. (i.e. those with mental deficiency, organic brain syndrome and organic dementia). Even among the control group a progressive increase in frequency of these perceptual cycles occurred with advancing age. These CFF results point to the existence of a cycle of perceptual acuity and another of vigilance in the organism. Both appear to relate to the neural integrity of the C.N.S.