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DONALD BOUDREAU, M.D.

A.M.A. Arch Neurol Psychiatry. 1958;80(6):771-775.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

During the past few years a number of articles have been published by Shagass and others^1-5 describing an objective means of evaluating clinical psychiatric data. This is known as the sedation threshold and is determined clinically after intravenous injection of amobarbital (Amytal) sodium by slurring of speech and, more precisely, by the EEG changes produced by barbiturates. By means of this method, there were obtained a number of interesting findings which seemed to warrant further investigation. The purpose of the present study was (1) to test the reliability of the technique and to determine how accurately it could be reproduced; (2) to examine the correlation of the sedation threshold with certain diagnostic categories and with manifest anxiety, and (3) to evaluate the stability of the threshold in nonpatient controls or in patients whose psychopathology remained constant.

Method

The method of determining the threshold corresponded to that originally described except . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
New York

From the Department of Psychiatry, New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication June 26, 1958.