Upper limb automatisms differ quantitatively in temporal and frontal lobe epilepsies

• Autor(a) principal: João Paulo Cunha
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Outros Autores: Remi,J, Vollmar,C, Fernandes,JM, Gonzalez Victores,JA, Noachtar,S
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.inesctec.pt/handle/123456789/6480; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2013.02.026

We quantitatively evaluated the localizing and lateralizing characteristics of ictal upper limb automatisms (ULAs) in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE; n = 38) and frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE; n = 20). Movement speed, extent, length, and duration of ULAs were quantitatively analyzed with motion capturing techniques. Upper limb automatisms had a larger extent (p < 0.001), covered more distance (p < 0.05), and were faster (p < 0.001) in FLE than in TLE. In TLE, the maximum speed of ULAs was higher ipsilaterally than contralaterally (173 vs. 84 pixels/s; p = 0.02), with no significant difference in FLE (511 vs. 428). The duration of ictal automatisms in relation to the total seizure duration was shorter in TLE than in FLE (median 36% vs. 63%; p < 0.001), with no difference in the absolute duration (26 s vs. 27 s). These results demonstrate that quantitative movement analysis of ULAs differentiates FLE from TLE, which may aid in the localization of the epileptogenic zone.