Interictal behaviour in hospitalised temporal lobe epileptics: relationship to idiopathic psychiatric syndromes

Autonomic responsiveness to affective visual stimulation in temporal lobe epilepsy

Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) have been posited by some to manifest a syndrome of interictal personality and behavioral change. Furthermore, this syndrome has been attributed to an underlying mechanism--enhanced affective responsiveness. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether patients with TLE manifest increased emotional responsiveness relative to appropriate controls. Patients with TLE (n = 23) were compared with non-TLE (n = 7) and healthy controls (n = 16) as to their autonomic nervous system responsiveness to an emotionally stressing film. No differences were found among the groups. These results are related to the larger literature concerning epilepsy and psychopathology.

The relationship between neuropsychological functioning and psychopathology in temporal lobe epileptic patients

With the use of Goldberg's method of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) analysis, evidence has been recently provided of a positive relationship between psychopathology and deficits in neuropsychological functioning in epileptic patients. The present study attempted to replicate this finding using more precise and appropriate criteria for grouping patients according to severity of neuropsychological impairment. Application of Goldberg's MMPI Rules to 34 temporal lobe epileptic patients grouped according to their neuropsychological status (nonimpaired or impaired) failed to support these findings. Possible reasons for the discrepant results, including differing methodologies and seizure patient characteristics across studies, are discussed.

Hypergraphia and mental handicap

Eight hundred and twenty-five mentally handicapped patients, housed in two hospitals, of all ages and both sexes, were examined for hypergraphia. Thirty-three patients (18 males and 15 females) were found to exhibit this phenomenon; approximately half of these were suffering from epilepsy, including five patients with temporal lobe abnormality. The different types of hypergraphia are reported and possible causes discussed.

Hypergraphia in epilepsy: is there a specificity to temporal lobe epilepsy?

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the specificity of hypergraphia to temporal lobe epilepsy using the paradigm developed by Sachdev and Waxman (1981). One hundred and thirty-eight patients were sent a standard stimulus letter and the response rates were examined for the patient groups with temporal lobe epilepsy (N = 80), and without (N = 31), and mixed seizure types (N = 13). For those patients who responded, additional analyses involved the number of words per response and the presence/absence of any qualitative indices of the postulated interictal behavioural syndrome of temporal lobe epilepsy. The results were interpreted in the light of the contemporary definitions of hypergraphia and were related to the larger literature concerned with personality and behavioural change in temporal lobe epilepsy.