Abstract
The “arrest response” produced by stimulation in the posterior frontal region and adjacent striatum has been studied in 30 patients. In essence it consists in the arrest of voluntary movement and may show additional features such as post-stimulation confusion, inappropriate or garbled speech, overt mood changes, contraversive movement of head and eyes, and occasionally somatic sensation. In two cases the response was produced from both hemispheres in the same individual. There was no evidence of a relationship between the lateralization of effective stimuli and handedness. In addition to interruption of speech, simple repetitive movements of the hand were usually inhibited and a formal continuous performance test (pressing a key to specific visual stimuli) showed marked impairment during stimulation. EEG monitoring failed to show post-stimulation epileptiform activation in 285 stimuli in thirteen patients at currents sufficient to produce arrest. In one case with prolonged post-stimulation confusion, slow wave activity was recorded from the stimulation site and recovery from this coincided with return of the patient's responses to normal. Autonomic responses, predominantly arrest of respiration, were recorded from areas overlapping those of the arrest response. Ancillary evidence was reviewed supporting the role of the striatum as a modulator of sensory-motor activity and in this way being an essential mechanism in the anatomical representation of consciousness.
Published Version
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