TEMPORAL LOBE EPILEPSY WITH PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIOUR DISORDERS CAUSED BY AN UNUSUAL CALCIFYING LESION: REPORT OF TWO CASES IN CHILDREN RELIEVED BY TEMPORAL LOBECTOMY

Abstract

It has long been realized that "a particular variety of epilepsy ", neither petit mal nor grand mal, but characterized by a " dreamy state " and often accompanied by a crude sensation of an olfactory, gustatory, or epigastric nature, commonly arises as a result of lesions of various types in the temporal lobe (Jackson, 1888, 1889, 1898). This type of epilepsy, which has been described as epilepsy with intellectual aura, uncinate epilepsy, psychical epilepsy, and in recent years as psycho- motor epilepsy, can frequently be shown by electro- encephalography to be associated with a focus of spike discharge in the anterior part of one or both temporal lobes (Penfield and Erickson, 1941; Gibbs, Gibbs, and Fuster, 1948; Lennox, 1951). Often its victims also show marked personality disorders and even psychosis (Lennox, 1951).