Antisaccades and memory-guided saccades in genetic generalized epilepsy and temporal lobe epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE: Oculomotor tasks can be used to measure volitional control of behavior sensitive to frontal dysfunction. This study aimed to examine the saccadic eye movement in Genetic Generalized Epilepsy (GGE) which could correlate with the abnormality of the frontal lobe or the thalamo-frontal network. METHODS: Twenty-one patients with GGE were compared with 22 patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) and 39 healthy controls. Visual-guided saccades, Antisaccades, and Memory-guided saccades as oculomotor tasks were performed using a novel gaze-tracker designed for clinical practice use. RESULTS: Patients with epilepsy (either GEE or TLE) had similar latency, accuracy, and velocity in visual-guided saccades and memory-guided saccades. Patients with epilepsy had similar latencies and correct antisaccade number. However, healthy volunteers, matched by age, had faster responses and more accurate results than patients with epilepsy. CONCLUSIONS: Our investigations did not reveal differences between TLE and GGE patients' groups in visually guided saccades, antisaccades, and memory-guided saccades, thus suggesting that the frontal cortical mechanisms responsible for them are not explicitly impaired in patients with GGE.

A new MR radiological sign in HaNDL syndrome. A case report.

BACKGROUND: One of the classical diagnostic criteria of the syndrome of transient headache and neurologic deficits with cerebrospinal fluid lymphocytosis (HaNDL syndrome) is the normality of imaging studies except from some reversible alterations as leptomeningeal enhancement or focal hypoperfusion. CASE: We present a 41 year-old man who abruptly started with a set of right parietal symptoms, meeting the diagnostic criteria for HaNDL syndrome. An electroencephalographic record showed a slowing of the right hemisphere. MR susceptibility weighted sequences demonstrated a reduced venous signal in the symptomatic hemisphere, unlike other transient disorders as migraine aura where an opposite pattern with prominence of the venous structures in the symptomatic hemisphere has been reported. This sign could reflect a decrease in metabolic demands or a fail in oxygen employment by the affected tissue. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this finding has not been described yet, and it may provide a new insight on the pathogenesis of HaNDL syndrome.