This biographical note pays a small tribute to Robert Naquet, one of the pillars of French epileptology together with Henri Gastaut, his mentor. It can be said that the Marseilles school of epilepsy left an indelible mark in the neurological sciences and that there is no epileptologist, in France and abroad, who was not influenced by the teachings of these two gentlemen. It is practically impossible to separate the scientific achievements of Robert Naquet from his multiple facets as a humanist, artist, and teacher. His warm personality and legendary modesty may serve as an example for future generations of neuroscientists.

View full abstract

To investigate the prevalence of epileptic prodromes, 293 subjects with epilepsy, ranging in age from 12 to 72 years, were interviewed. Sixty subjects (20.5%) had generalized epilepsies and 233 (79.5%) had localization-related epilepsies. Twenty-one subjects (7.2%) were found to have experienced prodromes. These prodromes were classified as "subjective" if the subject himself or herself perceived them, or "objective" if the subject's family or friends noted the symptoms while the subject did not. Although it is necessary to differentiate between a prodrome and a simple partial seizure, it is important to recognize the prodrome as an anticipating factor of an epileptic incident.

View full abstract

We assessed EEG changes in mice administered oseltamivir phosphate. Oral oseltamivir elongated the duration and increased the frequency of interictal spike discharges in sleeping El mice. This effect, however, was observed only within 24 hours after oseltamivir administration.

View full abstract

We report a case of a 51-year-old man presenting anxiety and autonomic symptoms of panic-like attacks and simultaneous auditory hallucination. No abnormalities were evident in a physical examination but his cognitive function was impaired. Thus panic disorder or non-specific dementia with psychosis was initially suspected. Brain MRI was almost normal, except for an old right basal ganglia infarction and mild frontal atrophy. Neuroimaging studies showed reduced glucose metabolism over bilateral frontal, right temporal and right parietal regions. When a panic-like attack occurred, EEG documented ictal discharges in the right frontal and temporal areas. After successful treatment with carbamazepine, cognitive dysfunction and abnormal findings on brain imaging were improved. This case suggests that epilepsy should be suspected in a patients presenting with anxiety symptoms of panic-like attacks and hallucinations.

View full abstract

The coexistence of hippocampal sclerosis (HS) and extrahippocampal lesions such as focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) and cavernoma (CA) in temporal lobe epilepsies (TLE) is termed 'dual pathology'. We report a case of TLE having 'triple pathology' of HS, FCD and CA in the ipsilateral frontal lobe. Using chronic subdural electrode recording, an interictal electrocorticogram (ECoG) demonstrated that the medial temporal lobe lesion and the FCD lesion exhibited independent paroxysmal discharges, while an ictal ECoG demonstrated that the medial temporal lobe was the ictal onset zone. We postulated that the FCD lesion caused repeated seizures, which in turn, caused secondary hippocampal damage and HS, and eventually medically intractable epilepsy. The coexistence of CA was considered incidental. As treatments, the epileptogenic HS was resected through an anterior temporal lobectomy, and the FCD lesion was biopsied, while no surgical intervention was performed for the CA lesion. The patient achieved good seizure control during 12 months after surgery. Chronic subdural electrode recording is important for the assessment of multiple epileptogenic lesions before epilepsy surgery.

View full abstract