A Preliminary Account of the Clinical Effects of Polarizing the Brain in Certain Psychiatric Disorders

Abstract

A previous paper (Lippold and Redfearn, 1964) described the mental changes that can be produced by the passage of small polarizing currents through the brain in human subjects. It became apparent during the course of these experiments that some of the effects persisted for hours or days after the current had been turned off. A persistent excitatory after-effect of surface-positive cortical polarization has recently been demonstrated in the rat (Bindman, Lippold and Redfearn, 1962). It is possible that a similar phenomenon, at the cellular level, is responsible for the long-lasting psychological effects of polarization.