[1] H. Landolt coined the term 'Forced Normalization' in 1953 in response to a change he witnessed in epileptic EEGs, which monitor electrical activity in the brain.
[citation needed] Researchers have been rallying for the broadening of the FN diagnostic criteria to include more episodic disorders than just epilepsy.
[8] However, in the systematic review discussed previously, researchers found that pharmacological stimulation proved ineffective in a range of cases.
[7] In one study, researchers combined pharmacological and electrical stimulation in an attempt to treat FN patients' psychosis without having to halt antiepileptic treatments.
[9] This led researchers to the conclusion that the pathophysiological antagonism that electrical and pharmacological stimuli are capable of may be too different to combine the methods of treatment for FN.
The most significant question is whether or not the FN diagnostic criteria should be broadened to include these psychiatric disturbances in any episodic disorder.
In this instance, the pattern of episodic disorder remission and abrupt manifestation of psychiatric behaviors that are present in epileptic cases of FN mirrored that of their migraine patient.
Thus far, in both migraine and epileptic cases of FN, the psychosis that develops is hypothesized to be rooted largely in non limbic structures of the brain, like the amygdala, cerebrum, and olfactory bulb.
Migraine researchers believe the primary focus of the diagnosis of FN should be placed on the activity in the cerebral cortex, as well as the psychiatric and behavioral changes that occur in a patient.