[The diagnostic value of electromyography in patients with demyelinating diseases of the nervous system].

The authors used EMG registrations of the reflex potentials in the orbicular ocular muscles appearing in an electrostimulation of the supraorbital nerve. The study included an analysis of the fluctuations of the latent period of the winking reflex in patients with different lesions of the central and peripheral nervous system. The authors were able to show a significant elongation of the latent period in patients with disseminated sclerosis, encephalomyelitis, Guillain-Barre polyradiculoneuritis. In other signs of focal lesions of the brain stem and polyneuropathy the latent period of the winking reflex was near to the normal indices. The authors propose to use this method for the study of the process of demyelinization in the brain stem and for early diagnosis of disseminated sclerosis.