Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and the Mind-Brain Relationship: A New Perspective

This book is devoted to the surgical treatment of epilepsy and its consequences, and provides an extraordinary perspective on the fascinating question of the relationship between brain and mind. Contrary to the current emphasis on statistics and objectivity, this book is dedicated to understanding the whole person, the life and experiences of the individual. It reports on cutting-edge technical skills provided with a human touch. This book reflects the understanding that the temporolimbic seizure originates in tissue providing the substrate for the emotional life and memory. Finally, it emphasizes the value of clinical research – here, conducted in the course of the diagnosis and surgical treatment of epilepsy – in helping to elucidate the relationship between brain and mind.

Introduction
Phenomenology of Seizures

Clinical Findings in Patients Treated at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, during the 1960?s

Positive experiences
Negative experiences
The destructive nature of a so-called ?minor seizure?
Direct expression of and handling of instinctual needs involving hunger, elimination, sexual and aggressive feelings as a seizure phenomenon or during brain stimulation

Delayed response to an urge for elimination by hallucinatory experience on brain stimulation

Profile view of the patients behavior over periods of weeks and months
Alteration of mood may occur with the sign shifted after a seizure.
The interictal period
Disturbances occasioned by anatomical or functional loss of neurons may result in chronic organic mental impairment of varying magnitude.

Psychotic features