[The influence of an early brain damage on psychic diseases in adulthood. A study documented by the AMP-system (author's transl)].

The data of 1926 psychiatric in-patients documented by the AMP-system were evaluated with respect to the anamnestic item "early brain damage". There were 82 cases (4.26%). For each patient with an early brain damage a control-case matched for age, sex and diagnosis was selected. Patients with mental handicaps were examined seperately. For methodical reasons the demonstrated frequencies are an underestimation, and subtle differences between index- and controlgroups are not expected to be visible, but those differences which could be found, will be real. The highest frequency for "early brain damage" was found in the diagnostic group which also contained the psychic disturbances in epilepsy. Among neuroses and schizophrenia the item was found with the average-frequency of the total psychiatric population. It was under-represented among affective psychoses and involutional diseases. An early brain damage predisposed to an earlier age of first manifestation, and the psychic disease showed a more chronic course. Hypotheses concerning the uneven distribution over the diagnostic spectrum were discussed with particular emphasis on the fact that hypoxic perinatal disturbances do not lead to diffuse and unspecific consequences, but predominantly to a sensory impairment and possibly to a deficit in the aminergic system. Early brain damage was also discussed as one mode of the transmission of psychic diseases.