É;lectro-encéphalogramme et syndrome frontal:: étude de 60 cas de tumeurs frontales et fronto-temporales

Abstract

Sixty cases of frontal and fronto-temporal tumors were studied from an anatomical, histological, clinical and electroencephalographic point of view. The morphological findings by themselves are not sufficient to explain all aspects of the electroencephalographic disturbances. The clinical material was schematically divided into several groups on the basis of the observed mental status: (1) absence of mental disturbances, (2) personality changes and (3) disturbances of consciousness such as somnolence or mental confusion. The persistence of a normal alpha activity is the rule in patients without mental changes or in those showing only personality changes. In somnolent patients the number of records with preservation of normal alpha activity diminishes to become even smaller in patients with mental confusion. Only in this latter group can the alpha activity be completely absent. The reactivity of the cortical rhythms seems even more sensitive to the disturbances created by the lesion. It is found to be normal in patients without mental disturbances, grossly disturbed when personality changes are present and in somnolent or confused patients the reactivity as a rule is always disturbed. Generally the lability of the blocking reaction in somnolent patients is distinct from its total abolition in patients with confusion. The presence and extent of abnormal wave forms, “delta activity”, is also in close relation with the degree of mental disturbances. The more pronounced those are, the larger the territory from which delta activity is recorded. Thus in confused patients one often finds bilateral or diffuse delta even in the case of a unilateral tumor of relatively small size. These findings are discussed and interpreted from a psycho-pathological point of view.