Behavioral psychophysiological intervention in a mentally retarded epileptic patient with brain lesion

Behavioral psychophysiological treatment entailing Slow Cortical Potential (SCP) biofeedback training and behavioral self-control training was conduct ed with a 27-year-old male epileptic patient (seizures for 23 years) with W echsler IQ 64 who underwent callosotomy. The patient had 12/week secondary generalized tonic-clonic seizures. The treatment, consisting of 43 SCP trai ning sessions and 22 behavioral control sessions, yielded a highly signific ant reduction of seizure frequency to about 7.5/week; such a decrease had n ever been observed after administration of new anticonvulsant drugs, nor af ter the callosotomy. During SCP feedback training, the patient was able to produce highly-significant cortical differentiation of SCPs of about 4 mu V . In addition, he developed several new behaviors indicating growing abilit y of self-perception and self-regulation. These findings suggest that a com bination of SCP biofeedback with behavioral treatment of epilepsy can be us ed even in mentally retarded patients with organic brain disorders.