Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Abstract

In the last century, Hughlings Jackson defined a seizure as a change in behavior due to an abnormal paroxysmal discharge of cerebral gray matter. Buttressed by subsequent scientific developments such as electroencephalography, this definition excludes other episodic conditions, such as ordinary panic or anger, or the sleep attacks of narcolepsy. Lay people frequently disregard this rather restrictive medical definition and call any unexpected event a seizure, e.g., a myocardial infarction is a “heart seizure.”