Somatosensory evoked responses in patients with carbon monoxide poisoning as compared with those in schizophrenics.

Abstract

SUMMARY The IIA ‐SER Pattern (Inter‐Individual A verage Somatosensory Evoked Response Pattern) of 87 mâle adult subjects, who were coalminers and exposed to CO‐gas in an accidental explosion in the coal mine 3 years prior to the present study and were surviving with or without residual symptoms at the time of the present study, was shown as the figure and as the series of numbers representing the deviations of the pattern from an estimated isoelectric line at intervals of 5 msec in latency. The IIA‐SER Pattern of the CO poisoned consisted of the components N1, P1, N2, P2, N3, P3 and N4, with the latencies of 20, 25, 35, 40, 75, 105 and 165 msec, respectively. The IIA‐SER Pattern of the CO poisoned was compared with that of mâle adult schizophrenics presented in the previous study. (1) The troughs of Ni, N2 and, especially, N3 were deeper, and the latencies of Pi and P2 were smaller in the IIA‐SER Pattern of the CO poisoned than in that of schizophrenics. (2) The Pattern of Vertical Difference between IIA‐SER Patterns of the CO poisoned and of schizophrenics attained to maximum at 60 msec in latency.