Post-ictal forceful yawning in a patient with nondominant hemisphere epilepsy

Abstract

Yawning has been rarely described in association with seizures and not previously documented by video-EEG. We present a 48-year-old woman with a long history of non-dominant for speech hemisphere seizures and post-ictal yawning. Yawning was irresistible, forceful and often repetitive. We reviewed the few similar epileptic cases described in the literature and discussed the possible mechanisms.