Seizure Activity Uniquely Inhibited by Patterned Vision

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Abstract
SOME EPILEPTICS have learned maneuvers which arrest a seizure in an initial focal stage. Typically, sensory (chiefly nociceptive) stimulation or mental concentration is used, but conditioned sensory blocking responses have also been reported.1 Such arresting mechanisms in epileptics are poorly understood, although arousal and electrical desynchronization might be considered their basic elements. These blocking mechanisms appear to prevent a focal seizure from becoming generalized. Inhibitory mechanisms, however, may also exist in the "centrencephalic" type of convulsive disorder. Jung2 reported numerous patients in whom petit mal could be blocked by nociceptive stimuli and acoustic fear stimuli. "Petit mal status," ie, episodes of stupor with sustained spike-wave discharges, should be distinguished from "sustained true petit mal seizures."3 Landolt4 reported episodes of "petit mal status" which were inhibited by sensory and mental stimuli. The identification of an unusually specific type of seizure inhibition in "petit mal status" prompts

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