Functional State of the Central Nervous System Under the Influence of a Pulse Current

Titaeva, M.A. Changes in the functional state of the central nervous system under the influence of a pulse current as used in electrosleep. In Wageneder, F.M. and St. Schuy (Eds.) Electrotherapeutic Sleep and Electroanaesthesia. International Congress Series, No. 136. Excerpta Medica Foundation, Amsterdam, Pp. 175-180, 1967.

This was an uncontrolled set of clinical observations of 110 patients, including 85 with schizophrenia and 25 with “asthenohypochondriacal syndromes of varied etiology.” For CES they used a pulsed current of 5 – 10 Hz, and duration of 0.2 msec, at an unspecified amperage. Treatment lasted from 40 minutes to 2 hours and continued for 16 – 25 days. They deduced that their observations indicated that the principal changes arising during CES can be attributed most probably to its direct action on the brain.

They then did a series of 35 experiments on 9 rabbits with the same pulse characteristics but with 0.7 to 2.0 V. Again they concluded that their observations indicated that CES has its effects via stimulation of the nonspecific structures of the subcortex and brain stem.