Dichotic listening and complex partial seizures

Abstract

This study reports on 24 patients with multiple symptoms of untreated complex partial seizures (CPSz) who performed poorly at baseline assessment on a brief dichotic word listening task and subsequently improved following successful anticonvulsant therapy directed at treating seizure symptoms. These preliminary findings suggest that, in the absence of macroscopic structural lesions, dynamic electrophysiological dysfunction may interfere with the processing and transmission of simultaneously presented auditory information.

Dissociation, Epileptiform Discharges and Chaos in the Brain: Toward a Neuroscientific Theory of Dissociation

“…Modern findings support the view that these symptoms have, similarly as dissociation (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986), in the general population a continuous character (Roberts, Varney, & Paulsen, 1990;Roberts et al, 1992). This continuum of complex partial seizure-like symptoms begins in a healthy state without the symptoms via transitional pathological states until the symptoms of complex partial epilepsy with all typical manifestations.…”

“…It is known that epileptic activity in interictal periods in temporal lobe epileptics produces characteristic symptoms called complex partial seizure-like symptoms. These symptoms represent intrusions into the normal state of consciousness in the form of cognitive, psychosenzory or affective symptoms (Roberts, 1993;Neppe, 1983;Roberts, Varney, & Paulsen, 1990;Silberman et al, 1985;Hines et al, 1995). Many of these symptoms were already defined by Hughlings Jackson in his classical studies (Roberts, Varney, & Paulsen, 1990;Dreifuss, 1981;Roberts et al, 1992).…”

Complex partial epileptic signs as a continuum from normals to epileptics: Normative data and clinical populations

“…Roberts and associates (Roberts, Paulsen, Marchman, & Varney, 1988;Roberts, Varney, Hulbert, et al, 1990;Roberts, Varney, Paulsen, & Richardson, 1990) have shown repeatedly that patients who exhibit quantitative increases in complex partial epileptic-like signs also display dichotic listening deficits and multiple elevations on the MMPI. Both the dichotic listening and MMPI scores improve (Springer, Garvey, Varney, & Roberts, 1991) after treatment with the anticonvulsant carbamazepine (Tegretol).…”

“…If these discharges do not generalize to the motor cortices or recruit a critical number of cortical columns (Goldensohn, 1983), electroencephalographic (EEG) signatures remain (qualitatively) normal. The size and the structural organization of the human brain contain most subclinical seizures (Rodin, 1987), like the "microseizures" that occur normally during rapid eye movement or dreams (Stevens, 1982), within the subcortical limbic system. Consequently, EEG signatures that reveal clear epileptoid patterns would reflect only the extreme cases that require more or less permanent, macrostructural changes in the brain.…”

Physical Feature Encoding and Word Recognition Abilities Are Altered in Children with Intractable Epilepsy: Preliminary Neuromagnetic Evidence

“…Therefore, our observed ERF changes in epilepsy patients when compared to healthy control subjects can be attributed with a higher degree to the pathology of epileptogenic zone itself rather than to the epileptic current. The evidence of epileptic activity per se interfering with propagation of auditory information was shown in a number of previous studies (e.g., see [45]). However, further investigations are needed in order to confirm or disprove these findings.…”