Seizure Activity Uniquely Inhibited by Patterned Vision

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.¹Such 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. Jung²reported 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."³Landolt⁴reported 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