Abstract
Correlation of the epileptic electroencephalo-graphic paroxysms with neuropathology of twenty severely handicapped patients was investigated.
1) Regional paroxysmal activities such as focal spikes or sharp waves predominantly represent lesions in the cerebral hemispheres.
2) Focal paroxysmal activities are generated by ulegyric or atrophic lesions in the cerebral hemispheres, but not by cystic lesions. This fact implies preserved nerve cells, more or less, are indispensable to generate paroxysmal activities.
3) Among paroxysmal activities sporadic focal spikes tend to be located at the severe lesions like ulegyria of the cerebral hemispheres, rhythmic spike and wave complexes at the slight lesions or intact hemispheres, and sporadic spike and wavecomplexes at the moderate lesions respectively.
4) Cases of infantile spasms with hypsarhyth-mia have lesions in such common areas of the brain as putamen, globus pallidus, specific thalamic nuclei and tegmentum of the brain stem. It was emphasized that the lesion of the pontine tegmentum is important to the manifestation of hypsarhythmia.
