Transient Epileptic Amnesia - Neuroimaging During Events

Neuroimaging During Events

An individual in the midst of a prolonged TEA attack was given a PET scan which revealed "dramatic and circumscribed hypermetabolism in the left medial temporal lobe" and his "fluid-attentuated inversion-recovery MRI scan revealed high signal in the left hippocampus." Surface EEG recording during an amnesic attack was performed in ten TEA cases. "All recordings showed seizure activity, which in 8/10 cases involved both temporal lobes and in the others remained unilateral (1 left and one right-sided)." "Another patient was having an EEG when a TGA event occurred; the trace showed a one-minute burst of left temporal spikes, followed by normalization of the EEG. MRI or CT scans have been reported in 62 TEA cases, with a very low incidence of clinically significant findings. Those focal brain lesions that have been detected have involved the medial temporal lobes. Typically, MRI and CT findings are not remarkable.