A brief battery for mental deterioration assessment was obtained by Discriminant Analysis techniques from the Mental Deterioration Battery (MDB) (1) and yielded 98% correct classifications in a sample of 60 subjects (30 pathological and 30 controls). This battery, named Brief Mental Deterioration Battery (BMDB), both quick and easy to administer, is composed of four tests: Rey's 15 Words Test, Immediate Visual Memory, Barrage, and Simple Analogies Test. MDB was administered to a further sample of 60 normal subjects and, by multivariate statistical techniques, a probabilistic definition of "normality" and consequently of "non-normality" was given. When applied to pathological and control groups, this probabilistic dichotomic classification yielded groups almost identical to the previous ones.

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The authors studied a 26-year-old healthy subject in whom a large arachnoid cyst of the right middle cranial fossa was revealed by chance. As there were no subjective or objective neurological findings, we checked the existence of any neuropsychological impairment. In spite of this, the patient obtained a good general performance level and sometimes the hemisphere containing the cyst performed better, in accordance with the patient’s handedness.

After 1 year of exposure to trichloroethylene, reversible neuropsychological impairment and persistent EEG paroxysms were observed in one patient. The improvement of neuropsychological performances and the persistence of severe EEG abnormalities after withdrawal of the toxin suggest "functional" cerebral damage after prolonged exposure to trichloroethylene.