Volume of the amygdala, hippocampus, Heschl's gyrus, and planum temporale in epileptic psychosis.

BACKGROUND

Schizophrenia and chronic interictal epileptic psychosis (EPS) are thought to have different underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. We aimed to investigate the neural basis of EPS.

METHODS

T1-weighted images were analyzed in 16 patients with EPS, 16 strictly matched patients with epilepsy only (EP), and 16 healthy control subjects (HS). We conducted structural magnetic resonance imaging analyses using a manual drawing method of several regions of interest (ROIs): the amygdala, hippocampus, Heschl's gyrus, and planum temporale.

RESULTS

Results revealed that both the EP and EPS groups exhibited significantly lower hippocampal volumes than the HS group (p = 0.008). There were no significant differences in the volume of any ROI between the EP and EPS groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Our ROI analyses indicated that the hippocampus is affected by epilepsy but the amygdala, hippocampus, Heschl's gyrus, and planum temporale may not be crucial for generating EPS.