Bispectral index monitoring during dissociative pseudoseizure

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jan 2008  by Wickramasekera, Ian II

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Sartorius A & Schmahl C. (2007). Bispectral index monitoring during dissociative pseudoseizure. World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, 1-3. The authors present a psychophysiological case study of a patient with symptoms of conversion disorder and dissociation. The authors discuss how patients with borderline personality disorder, conversion disorder, and various forms of dissociative disorders all share some degree of commonality in their experiences of transient dissociative symptoms.

The authors investigated one patients electroencephalographic correlates while she was experiencing a transient dissociative episode of complete anesthesia, paralysis, and amnesia which lasted around 1 hour. During that time the authors were able to collect EEG data and determine the patient's bipsectral index (an EEG based measure). The authors compared the patient's value of bipsectral index to levels typically seen during hypnosis. The authors concluded that this evidence may suggest that mechanisms of dissociation and hypnosis may indeed share a common neural architecture as indeed many theorists of hypnosis have postulated for over 100 years. Address for reprints: A. Sartorius, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany.

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