First Alfred Meyer Memorial Lecture. Epileptic brain damage: a consequence and a cause of seizures

Alfred Meyer and his colleagues were the first to report (1954-1956) that the most frequent pathology in tissue from patients with complex partial seizures successfully treated by anterior temporal lobectomy is mesial temporal sclerosis, and that the majority of patients with this lesion give a history of a prolonged seizure early in life. These observations have been repeatedly confirmed. Experimental data from animal models strongly supports the hypothesis that a prolonged generalized or limbic seizure in early life damages the hippocampus and other limbic structures, facilitating an epileptogenic process that, after a latent period, gives rise to spontaneous limbic seizures. Some mechanisms potentially contributing to this process have been identified.