Periictal psychosis - In comparison with interictal psychosis

Abstract

We compared twenty-two patients with acute periictal psychosis (P-group) and twenty-five patients with acute interictal psychosis (I-group) selected from six hundred and six epileptics with complex partial seizures or temporal EEG foci. The average age at onset of psychotic episodes in P-group (32.1 ± 9.6) was significantly older than that in I-group (26.6 ± 7.8). Anxiety aura and dysmnestic seizures were reported significantly more often in P-group than in G-group (χ2 = 4.85, p < 0.05). Unilateral sensori-motor seizures tended to be also more intimately associated with P-group. Together with relative predominance of additional frontal EEG-foci, we interpreted this tendency as an evidence of more wide-spread cortical involvement in the P-group. Psychopathological characteristics of both groups showed marked difference. In periictal psychosis, the commonest pattern of psychopathological findings were relative paucity of primary delusion in contrast with predominance of abnormal moods. This trend was reversed in interictal psychosis. This difference between two groups was statistically confirmed (p < 0.005). In addition, religiosity and sexual disinhibition were also psychopathological features of periictal psychosis.