REFLEX RESPONSE LATENCIES

Abstract

In earlier experimentation¹we adduced information supporting the generally accepted concept that retardation and facilitation of the higher neural correlation centers increase and decrease, respectively, the activities of the lower neural correlation centers. The results of one study²included the observation that in psychiatric cases hyperfunction and hypofunction of the thought processes were associated, respectively, with hypofunction and hyperfunction of the patellar tendon reflex arc. The search for further confirmation or refutation of this observation led to the present study. The well known antithetical phases of the cyclothymoses, presenting on the one hand ideational flight and on the other hand thought retardation, seemed to offer ideally sharply contrasting degrees of activity of the neurologic hierarchies for the further testing of our observation. From the total hospital population (1,600) were selected all of the frank manic and depressed patients whose cases were uncomplicated by any concurrent illness. At the