Endogenous conditioning to abnormal cerebral electrical transients in man.

Ten subjects with epilepsy were trained to press a lever to avoid a mildly painful shock each time paroxysmal epileptiform activity occurred in their own electroencephalogram. All subjects learned to avoid the shock as long as they could hear the electroencephalogram and respond to the characteristic change in sound accompanying each spike-wave burst. When the audio component of the electroencephalogram was eliminated, only one subject was able to respond to the purely subjective effect of his own paroxysmal activity.