B. Kotchoubey et al., Negative potential shifts and the prediction of the outcome of neurofeedback therapy in epilepsy, CLIN NEU, 110(4), 1999, pp. 683-686
About two-thirds of epilepsy patients who learn to control their slow corti
cal potential shifts (SCP) reduce their seizure rate, but the remaining thi
rd does not demonstrate clinical improvement. In the present study, this fi
nding was replicated in a group of 27 patients with focal epilepsy. We foun
d that patients who consistently produced larger negative SCP in all condit
ions during the first phase of treatment, showed no decrease in seizure fre
quency during the six-month follow-up, as compared with the three-month bas
eline phase. The large negative SCP explained about one-third of the varian
ce of the clinical outcome. Age, medication, seizure history, or the locali
zation of focus were found to be unrelated to clinical improvement. (C) 199
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