10.5

• Patients whose seizures are repeatedly generated by their own chronic brain dysfunction. These are patients with the neurological disease called:

  Epilepsy
• Many cases of epilepsy are associated with faults at inhibitory synapses.
• Dysfunctional activity in astrocytes is also implicated in the development of seizures
• The diagnosis of epilepsy rests heavily on evidence from electroencephalography (EEG).
• Some individuals with epilepsy experience peculiar psychological changes just before a seizure. These changes, called epileptic auras.
• Why are Epileptic auras important?

  • the nature of the auras provides clues concerning the location of the epileptic focus.
  • warn the patient of an impending convulsion
• Two general categories of seizures:

  Focal and Generalized Seizures
• A focal seizure is a seizure that does not involve the entire brain.
• Focal seizures do not involve the entire brain, they are often not accompanied by a total loss of consciousness or equilibrium.
• Simple seizures are focal seizures whose symptoms are primarily sensory or motor or both.
• Simple seizures are sometimes called Jacksonian seizures after the famous 19th-century neurologist Hughlings Jackson.
• Simple seizures are sometimes called Jacksonian seizures after the famous 19th-century neurologist Hughlings Jackson.
• Complex seizures often begin in the temporal lobes and usually do not spread out of them.
• Those who experience complex seizures in temporal lobes are often said to have temporal lobe epilepsy.
• During a complex seizure, the patient engages in compulsive, repetitive, simple behaviors commonly referred to as automatisms.
• The International League Against Epilepsy (ILEA)—the group responsible for defining the diagnostic criteria for seizures and epilepsy.
• Why did the ILEA discouraged the use of complex and simple as categories of seizures?

  Because focal seizures be classified in terms of the level of disruption of consciousness during the seizure, ranging from no disruption of consciousness (as is true for many simple seizures) to disrupted consciousness (as is true for many complex seizures.
• Generalized seizures involve the entire brain.
• The primary symptoms of a tonic-clonic seizure are loss of consciousness, loss of equilibrium, and a violent tonic-clonic convulsion
• turning blue from a lack of oxygen during a convulsion

  cyanosis