Acute psychosis during intracranial EEG monitoring: close relationship between psychotic symptoms and discharges in amygdala.

PURPOSE: This report examined the underlying mechanism of psychosis associated with epilepsy.

METHODS

An adult patient with epilepsy manifesting acute psychosis during long-term EEG monitoring is presented, together with a literature review on this subject.

RESULTS

A 25-year-old woman with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy developed acute psychosis while she underwent long-term intracranial EEG monitoring. After a clustering of seizures, she manifested psychotic symptoms including hallucination, stupor, and repeated fear. The transition of psychotic symptoms corresponded to the changes in frequency and morphology of seizure discharges restricted to the left amygdala. Improvement of psychosis coincided with disappearance of seizure discharges.

CONCLUSIONS

This case confirmed a close relationship between psychotic symptoms and seizure discharges in the left amygdala. It is suggested that paroxysmal bombardment of the medial temporal lobe structure may be a pathogenetic factor of acute psychosis associated with epilepsy.