Ictal Blinking: Reappraisal of the Lateralization and Localization Value in Focal Seizures

2022 ◽  
pp. 155005942110708
Author(s):  
Ayse Nur Ozdag Acarli ◽  
Ayse Deniz Elmali ◽  
Nermin Gorkem Sirin ◽  
Betul Baykan ◽  
Nerses Bebek

Introduction. Although ictal blinking is significantly more frequent in generalized epilepsy, it has been reported as a rare but useful lateralizing sign in focal seizures when it is not associated with facial clonic twitching. This study aimed to raise awareness of eye blinking as a semiological lateralizing sign. Method. Our database over an 11-year period reviewed retrospectively to assess patients who had ictal blinking associated with focal seizures. Results. Among 632 patients, 14 (2.2%), who had 3 to 13 (7 ± 3) seizures during video-EEG monitoring, were included. Twenty-five percent of all 92 seizures displayed ictal blinking and each patient had one to five seizures with ictal blinking. Ictal blinking was unilateral in 17%, asymmetrical in 22% and symmetrical in 61%. The blinking appeared with a mean latency of 6.3 s (range 0-39) after the clinical seizure-onset, localized most often to fronto-temporal, then in frontal or occipital regions. Blinking was ipsilateral to ictal scalp EEG lateralization side in 83% (5/6) of the patients with unilateral/asymmetrical blinking. The exact lateralization and localization of ictal activity could not have been determined via EEG in most of the patients with symmetrical blinking, remarkably. Conclusions. Unilateral/asymmetrical blinking is one of the early components of the seizures and appears as a useful lateralizing sign, often associated with fronto-temporal seizure-onset. Symmetrical blinking, on the other hand, did not seem to be valuable in lateralization and localization of focal seizures. Future studies using invasive recordings and periocular electrodes are needed to evaluate the value of blinking in lateralization and localization.

Author(s):  
Richard Wennberg

ABSTRACT:Background:Postictal noserubbing (PIN) has been identified as a good, albeit imperfect, lateralizing and localizing sign in human partial epilepsy, possibly related to ictal autonomic activation.Methods:PIN was studied prospectively in a group of consecutive patients admitted for video-EEG monitoring, with the laterality of noserubbing correlated with electrographic sites of seizure onset, intra- and interhemispheric spread, and sites of seizure termination.Results:PIN was significantly more frequent in temporal than extratemporal epilepsy (p<0.001; 23/41 (56%) patients and 41/197 (21%) seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy compared with 4/34 (12%) patients and 12/167 (7%) seizures in extratemporal epilepsy). The hand used to rub the nose was ipsilateral to the side of seizure onset in 83% of both temporal and extratemporal seizures. Seizures with contralateral PIN correlated with spread to the contralateral temporal lobe on scalp EEG (p<0.04). All extratemporal seizures with PIN showed spread to temporal lobe structures. One patient investigated with intracranial electrodes showed PIN only when ictal activity spread to involve the amygdala: seizures confined to the hippocampus were not associated with PIN. PIN was not observed in 63 nonepileptic events in 17 patients. Unexpectedly, one patient with primary generalized epilepsy showed typical PIN after 1/3 recorded absence seizures.Conclusions:This study confirms PIN as a good indicator of ipsilateral temporal lobe seizure onset. Instances of false lateralization and localization appear to reflect seizure spread to contralateral or ipsilateral temporal lobe structures, respectively. Involvement of the amygdala appears to be of prime importance for induction of PIN.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 937-939
Author(s):  
Anna Stefánsdóttir ◽  
Anne Sabers ◽  
Annette Sidaros ◽  
György Rásonyi ◽  
Noémi Becser Andersen ◽  
...  

Seizure ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 173-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Mahr ◽  
Marc-Philipp Bergmann ◽  
Lara Kay ◽  
Leona Möller ◽  
Philipp S. Reif ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 101 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 46-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Ákos Szabó ◽  
Felipe S. Salinas ◽  
M. Michelle Leland ◽  
Jean-Louis Caron ◽  
Martha A. Hanes ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 128 (12) ◽  
pp. 2454-2461 ◽  
Author(s):  
I.C. Zibrandtsen ◽  
P. Kidmose ◽  
C.B. Christensen ◽  
T.W. Kjaer

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Diana Mungall Robinson ◽  
Batool F. Kirmani

The objective of our study was to emphasize the importance of intensive video EEG monitoring in patients with a well-established diagnosis of epilepsy with moderate cognitive impairment. The idea was to diagnose new onset frequent atypical events prompting the need for frequent emergency room and clinic visits and hospital admissions. Retrospective chart reviews were conducted on patients with chronic epilepsy with moderate cognitive impairment who had an increased incidence of new onset episodes different from the baseline seizures. Data were acquired from electronic medical records. The hospital’s Institutional Review Board gave approval for this retrospective analysis of patient records. We retrospectively analyzed data from three patients with an established diagnosis of epilepsy. Extensive chart reviews were performed with emphasis on type and duration of epilepsy and description of baseline seizures and description of new events. There were two men and one woman with moderate cognitive impairment. One subject had generalized epilepsy and other two had temporal lobe epilepsy. The patients were on an average of two to three antiepileptic medicines. The duration of follow-up in our neurology clinic ranged from 9 months to 5 years. The occurrence of increased frequency of these atypical events as described by the caregivers, despite therapeutic anticonvulsant levels, prompted the need for 5-day intensive video EEG monitoring. New atypical spells were documented in all three patients and the brain waves were normal during those episodes. The diagnosis of pseudoseizures was made based on the data acquired during the epilepsy monitoring unit stay. Our data analysis showed that intensive video EEG monitoring is an important tool to evaluate change in frequency and description of seizures even in cognitively impaired patients with an established diagnosis of epilepsy for adequate seizure management.


2006 ◽  
Vol 37 (S 1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A Abdelmoity ◽  
W Graf ◽  
H Tsoi ◽  
M Wise

2020 ◽  
Vol 133 (6) ◽  
pp. 1863-1872 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hideaki Tanaka ◽  
Jean Gotman ◽  
Hui Ming Khoo ◽  
André Olivier ◽  
Jeffery Hall ◽  
...  

OBJECTIVEThe authors sought to determine which neurophysiological seizure-onset features seen during scalp electroencephalography (EEG) and intracerebral EEG (iEEG) monitoring are predictors of postoperative outcome in a large series of patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy who underwent resective surgery.METHODSThe authors retrospectively analyzed the records of 75 consecutive patients with focal epilepsy, who first underwent scalp EEG and then iEEG (stereo-EEG) for presurgical assessment and who went on to undergo resective surgery between 2004 and 2015. To determine the independent prognostic factors from the neurophysiological scalp EEG and iEEG seizure-onset information, univariate and standard multivariable logistic regression analyses were used. Since scalp EEG and iEEG data were recorded at different times, the authors matched scalp seizures with intracerebral seizures for each patient using strict criteria.RESULTSA total of 3057 seizures were assessed. Forty-eight percent (36/75) of patients had a favorable outcome (Engel class I–II) after a minimum follow-up of at least 1 year. According to univariate analysis, a localized scalp EEG seizure onset (p < 0.001), a multilobar intracerebral seizure-onset zone (SOZ) (p < 0.001), and an extended SOZ (p = 0.001) were significantly associated with surgical outcome. According to multivariable analysis, the following two independent factors were found: 1) the ability of scalp EEG to localize the seizure onset was a predictor of a favorable postoperative outcome (OR 6.073, 95% CI 2.011–18.339, p = 0.001), and 2) a multilobar SOZ was a predictor of an unfavorable outcome (OR 0.076, 95% CI 0.009–0.663, p = 0.020).CONCLUSIONSThe study findings show that localization at scalp seizure onset and a multilobar SOZ were strong predictors of surgical outcome. These predictors can help to select the better candidates for resective surgery.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (04) ◽  
pp. 1650016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loukianos Spyrou ◽  
David Martín-Lopez ◽  
Antonio Valentín ◽  
Gonzalo Alarcón ◽  
Saeid Sanei

Interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) are transient neural electrical activities that occur in the brain of patients with epilepsy. A problem with the inspection of IEDs from the scalp electroencephalogram (sEEG) is that for a subset of epileptic patients, there are no visually discernible IEDs on the scalp, rendering the above procedures ineffective, both for detection purposes and algorithm evaluation. On the other hand, intracranially placed electrodes yield a much higher incidence of visible IEDs as compared to concurrent scalp electrodes. In this work, we utilize concurrent scalp and intracranial EEG (iEEG) from a group of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients with low number of scalp-visible IEDs. The aim is to determine whether by considering the timing information of the IEDs from iEEG, the resulting concurrent sEEG contains enough information for the IEDs to be reliably distinguished from non-IED segments. We develop an automatic detection algorithm which is tested in a leave-subject-out fashion, where each test subject’s detection algorithm is based on the other patients’ data. The algorithm obtained a [Formula: see text] accuracy in recognizing scalp IED from non-IED segments with [Formula: see text] accuracy when trained and tested on the same subject. Also, it was able to identify nonscalp-visible IED events for most patients with a low number of false positive detections. Our results represent a proof of concept that IED information for TLE patients is contained in scalp EEG even if they are not visually identifiable and also that between subject differences in the IED topology and shape are small enough such that a generic algorithm can be used.


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