The development of sleep spindles was studied quantitatively in 32 healthy subjects between the ages of 4 and 24 years. The peak frequency distribution of the spindles showed a bimodal pattern with 11.0 to 12.75 Hz in the frontal area and 12.5 to 14.5 Hz in the centroparietal area. The two types of spindle activity showed different courses of maturation. The peak frequency of the centroparietal spindles gradually increased linearly with age, whereas the frontal spindles abruptly increased in frequency during early adolescence. Regarding the power spectra, while centroparietal spindles showed little change in power from 4 to 24 years of age, frontal spindles decreased remarkably in power and became stable at about 13 years of age. The two types of spindles and the difference in their development may suggest the existence of different generators or a topographical difference during maturation in the thalamocortical network. The frontal spindle activity could be a good indicator to evaluate CNS maturation in young children and adolescents.

Two patients with personality disorder and depression attempted to self-administer electroconvulsive therapy with a homemade device. The patients showed no proper psychopathological improvement after these attempts. Both of the patients' temples were seriously burned, and one of them required skin grafting. Both patients rejected to have reasonable psychosocial support, and followed a cult mental health manual in attempting to self-administer electroconvulsive therapy. To our knowledge, this is only the second report of its kind. The intractable psychopathology, poor interpersonal skills, and misleading information seemed to lead to the self-harm behaviors of our 2 patients.

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