Abstract
Pure amnestic seizures are defined as self-limited episodes with isolated, anterograde memory loss and have been attributed to bilateral dysfunction of mesial temporal structures. This type of seizure can occur in patients with different forms of temporal lobe epilepsy and has been more recently associated with a late-onset epileptic syndrome, called transient epileptic amnesia (TEA). The mechanisms of such prolonged manifestations are not well known and notably its ictal or post-ictal origin remains poorly understood. We report a case of prolonged anterograde amnesia (lasting several hours) following a brief seizure induced by stimulation of the left entorhinal cortex, recorded during stereo-EEG (SEEG). This episode was associated with prolonged changes in the intracerebral EEG signal complexity (entropy) within bilateral mesial temporal structures, particularly the entorhinal cortices, with a progressive normalization paralleling the clinical recovery. Our case shows that long-lasting (hours) memory impairment may follow brief seizure that led to prolonged electrophysiological signals alterations in bilateral mesial temporal structures.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Bandt C, Pompe B (2002) Permutation entropy: a natural complexity measure for time series. Phys Rev Lett 88:4. https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.88.174102
Barbeau EJ (2011) Les modèles de la mémoire: approches anatomo-fonctionnelle et représentationnelle-hiérarchique. Rev Neuropsychol 3:104. https://doi.org/10.3917/rne.032.0104
Butler CR, Graham KS, Hodges JR et al (2007) The syndrome of transient epileptic amnesia. Ann Neurol 61:587–598. https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.21111
Butler CR, Bhaduri A, Acosta-Cabronero J et al (2009) Transient epileptic amnesia: regional brain atrophy and its relationship to memory deficits. Brain 132:357–368. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awn336
Gallassi R (2006) Epileptic amnesic syndrome: an update and further considerations. Epilepsia 47:103–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-1167.2006.00704.x
Jensen CD, Krøigård T, Beier CP (2020) Transient epileptic amnesia diagnosed using long-term electroencephalography. Epileptic Disord 22:225–228. https://doi.org/10.1684/epd.2020.1148
Kapur N (1993) Transient epileptic amnesia a clinical update and a reformulation. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 56:1184–1190. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.56.11.1184
Manes F, Springer J, Jorge R, Robinson RG (1999) Verbal memory impairment after left insular cortex infarction. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 67:532–534. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.67.4.532
Mateos DM, Guevara Erra R, Wennberg R, Perez Velazquez JL (2018) Measures of entropy and complexity in altered states of consciousness. Cogn Neurodyn 12:73–84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-017-9459-8
Mishkin M, Suzuki WA, Gadian DG, Vargha–Khadem F (1997) Hierarchical organization of cognitive memory. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 352:1461–1467. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1997.0132
Mosbah A, Tramoni E, Guedj E et al (2014) Clinical, neuropsychological, and metabolic characteristics of transient epileptic amnesia syndrome. Epilepsia 55:699–706. https://doi.org/10.1111/epi.12565
Palmini AL, Gloor P, Jones-Gotman M (1992) Pure amnestic seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy. Brain 115:749–769
Tassinari CA, Ciarmatori C, Alesi C et al (1991) Transient global amnesia as a Postictal State from recurrent partial seizures. Epilepsia 32:882–885. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-1157.1991.tb05545.x
Trébuchon A, Chauvel P (2016) Electrical stimulation for seizure induction and functional mapping in Stereoelectroencephalography. J Clin Neurophysiol 33:511–521. https://doi.org/10.1097/WNP.0000000000000313
Vargha-Khadem F, Gadian DG, Watkins KE et al (1997) Differential Effects of early hippocampal pathology on episodic and semantic memory. Science (80-) 277:376–380. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.277.5324.376
Yang Y, Zhou M, Niu Y et al (2018) Epileptic seizure prediction based on permutation Entropy. Front Comput Neurosci. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2018.00055
Zeman AZJ, Boniface SJ, Hodges JR (1998) Transient epileptic amnesia: a description of the clinical and neuropsychological features in 10 cases and a review of the literature. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 64:435–443. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.64.4.435
Acknowledgements
We thank Dr Romain Carron for the implantation of SEEG electrodes and Prof Didier Scavarda for the resective surgery of the patient.
Funding
The research leading to these results received funding from Agence Nationale de la Recherche, under Grant/ Award Number: ANR- 11- IDEX- 0001- 02 and ANR- 13- PRTS- 0011- 01.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing Interests
The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Additional information
Handling Editor: Christoph Michel.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Chatzikonstantinou, S., Jegou, A., Brohée, S. et al. How May a Brief Seizure Lead to Prolonged Epileptic Amnesia?. Brain Topogr 36, 129–134 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-022-00930-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-022-00930-z