Factors Involved in the Development of Pathological Behavior: Schizokinesis and Autokinesis

FACTORS INVOLVED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PATHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR: SCHIZOKINESIS AND AUTOKINESIS W. HORSLEY GANTT* In spite ofthe enormous amount ofbiochemical and physiological data accumulated on the study ofabnormal behavior, we do not yet have a comprehensive answer to the mechanism of its development. However, certain leads discovered by the application ofobjective methods used by Pavlov help us to an insight into this problem. I shall describe especially what light is thrown upon experimental neurosis by our studies ofthe use of the cardiac conditional reflex, as we have evolved it during the past two decades. Study ofthe cardiac factor (emotional background) in normal and abnormal behavior has revealed mechanisms hitherto unknown in the development ofexperimental neurosis. A study of the dog over his life span, up to fifteen years, in this laboratory, as well as the previous work of Pavlov, has shown that both the external and internal environments and the genotype (temperament) play a role. Pavlov gave equal emphasis to the factors ofthe internal and external environment. Although he recognized the importance ofordinary emotional stimuli, he was especially concerned with what he called conflict or collision between the excitatory and the inhibitory conditional reflexes. His previous work convinced him that the activity ofthe nervous system at the higher levels could be expressed in terms ofexcitation and inhibition similar to what was known in neurophysiology. He had found that disturbances in the behavior ofhis dogs occurred when the excitatory and the * Psychophysiologic Research Laboratory, VA Hospital, Perry Point, Maryland, and Pavlovian Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University. This paper is based upon the report by Ganre, Royer, and Newton presented to the Third World Congress ofPsychiatry, Montreal, onJune ç, 1961. 473 inhibitory stimuli were made similar in their physical properties, e.g., when the tone representing food to the hungry dog approached in pitch the tone with which the dog never received food—the so-called conflict between excitation and inhibition. Pavlov's choice ofthe salivary gland as an index ofhigher nervous activity was a fortunate one for the early work with conditional reflexes, but equally unfortunate as a basis for medicine and psychosomatic relationships . Salivation, having few connections in the body except with the ingestion offood or ofirritating substances, was ideal as a barometer for cerebral activity. But salivary function has little interest for medicine. Perhaps for this reason Pavlov's concepts have not been readily adopted in medicine:—because of the general notion that the conditional reflex could be comprehended by the statement that "you ring a bell and the dog secretes saliva." Pavlov was well aware of the fluctuations of the cardio-respiratory functions accompanying the conditional reflex, but he did not use this function as a measure because of the multitudinous connections of this system with other physiological functions. I. Use ofCardiovascular Function In our laboratories, at the Johns Hopkins University and in the VA Hospital at Perry Point, the cardiovascular functions have been systematically studied for the past two decades (a) because ofthe increasing importance ofthis system in human pathology, and (£>) because the cardiovascular responses reveal inner mechanisms at the basis ofneurotic and psychotic development which cannot be readily seen in other physiological systems. Certain properties of the cardiovascular system make it especially useful in the above studies. First, one or another aspect ofcardiovascular function may be the most delicate objective record ofnew relationships formed to the environment. Second, the cardiovascular reflexes obey the general laws established by Pavlov for conditionalreflexes, but there are important differences. These differences may be responsible for cardiovascular pathology and, as well, may reveal a mechanism of psychotic development. Cardiovascular functions such as heartrate and bloodpressureare ordinarily less open to inspection by the subject—viz., not so evident in consciousness as salivation. But the fact that this function may be unconscious does not mean that it cannot become a conditional reflex (i). 474 W. Horsley Gantt · Schizokinesis and Autokinesis Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Summer 1962 A study ofcardiovascular reflexes has given us a special insight into the action ofthe nervous system, the establishment ofneurotic and psychotic states, and specialpathological cardiovascular functions such as tachycardia and hypertension. In order to encompass the range ofcardiovascular changes in more than one species, we have studied cardiac...