Psychophysiologic Aspects of Severe Behavior Disorders

Abstract

Large numbers of administrative and unsuitability discharges are awarded each year by the Armed Forces of the United States to personnel who have been unable to render useful service because of the severity of their behavior disorders. During the past year a pilot study to determine the psychophysiologic basis for severe personality disorders was conducted on 90 such patients who were admitted to the US Navy's primary clinical psychiatric center on the West Coast. In addition to the long-recognized connection of acute behavioral disorders with psychomotor epilepsies, the relationship between electroencephalographic (EEG) abnormalities and behavior disorders in apparently seizure-free subjects was noted in 1938 by Jasper, Solomon, and Bradley.¹ Most of their group of hyperactive, impulsive children with inappropriate behavior revealed abnormal slowing on their EEG's. Within five years an array of studies^2-7 on older subjects exhibiting antisocial behavior also revealed markedly