AJMONE-MARSAN 161Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology Branch, NINDB, 1960
Left to right: Research Associates are Lennart Widen, Paul Gerin, Kristof Abraham, and
Arturo Morillo, with the Branch Chief, Cosimo Ajmone-Marsan
Donated to the Office of NIH History by Dr. Cosimo Ajmone-Marsan
disadvantages. Most important was the risk that the procedure might
induce a nonspecific seizure (after all, the test had originated as shock
therapy to provoke grand mal seizures in non-epileptic, psychiatric subjects)
or a seizure with different characteristics from those of the spontaneously
occurring ictal episodes. Analogously, the drug was likely to produce EEG
changes also of a nonspecific, paroxysmal type that could mask the focal
features or lead to misinterpretation. At variance from the viewpoint of a
number of investigators at that time, the procedure was never considered
as a valid one for the diagnosis of epilepsy (e.g., by utilizing threshold data
or induced EEG changes), but rather it was accepted as a potentially use
ful procedure to gain additional information of a topographic-localizing
nature in an otherwise well-established epileptic patient.
In any case, to increase confidence that the Metrazol-induced seizure
was indeed a valid reproduction of those occurring spontaneously in any