The semiology of benign focal epilepsy with affective symptoms.

Benign focal epilepsy with affective symptoms (BFEAS) is a rare childhood epilepsy syndrome essentially characterized by "epileptic attacks with affective symptoms of a terrifying type". Since the original description, approximately 50 cases have been reported. To our knowledge, however, none of the studies included video-EEG data.

Patient satisfaction with temporal lobectomy/selective amygdalohippocampectomy for temporal lobe epilepsy and its relationship with Engel classification and the side of lobectomy.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate not only the effectiveness of epilepsy surgery in improving seizure control but also patient satisfaction with the result of the procedure in a sample of patients operated on at a specialized epilepsy unit.

Methods: Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy who had undergone epilepsy surgery (temporal lobectomy/amygdalohippocampectomy) were interviewed in a standardized telephone survey about their satisfaction with the results of the surgery. The morbidity of the surgery was also analyzed retrospectively.

Vagus nerve stimulation may be a sound therapeutic option in the treatment of refractory epilepsy.

Introduction: Refractory epilepsy accounts for 20 to 30% of epilepsy cases and remains a challenge for neurologists. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is an option for palliative treatment.

Objective: It was to study the efficacy and tolerability of VNS in patients implanted with a stimulator at the Curitiba Institute of Neurology (INC).

[Surgical treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy: a series of forty-three cases analysis].

Forty-three patients with epilepsy resistant to drug therapy were submitted to temporal lobe epilepsy surgery at the Instituto de Neurologia de Curitiba, from 1998 to 2003. Thirty-nine patients (90.6%) had mesial temporal sclerosis, and four had brain tumors.

Syncope or epileptic fits? Some examples of diagnostic confounding factors.

Syncope is a condition often misdiagnosed as epileptic seizures. However, the differential diagnosis between both conditions can be quite difficult, even for well-trained physicians. Four cases of epilepsy and/or syncope are reported, to exemplify this situation.

"Hot-water epilepsy ", "warm-water epilepsy", or bathing epilepsy? Report of three cases and considerations regarding an old theme.

Partial and generalized tonic-clonic reflex seizures related to hot water bathing have been described as temperature-related. We describe three cases of bathing epilepsy: a 28 year-old white male and a 30 year-old white female with spells triggered either by warm or hot water, and a 32 year-old female with spells triggered by hot water. The later two of the three cases presented localized epilepsy and a familial history of epilepsy.

[Functional magnetic resonance imaging in the determination of dominant language cerebral area].

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique for detecting minimal changes in brain perfusion and oxygenation secondary to neuronal activation. Its application in the pre-surgical evaluation of epileptic patients with temporal mesial sclerosis is currently being under investigation in several centers. This study aims to describe an activation paradigm for the evaluation of language and memory functions, as an alternative to the worldwide used Wada test, which is an invasive procedure.