Relationship Between Certain Forms of Psychomotor Epilepsy and "Schizophrenia"

The description of "dreamy states" by Hughlings Jackson1in 1888 brought attention to the fact that a number of psychic symptoms could be experienced as a result of pathological events within relatively restricted areas of the brain. It could be clearly established in subsequent years that hallucinations, "bizarre" visceral sensations, feelings of depersonalization, sudden feelings of panic or impending catastrophe, distortions of bodily or spatial perceptions, loss of consciousness without convulsive movements, amnesic episodes, and automatic behavior can occur as a result of focal seizure discharges. Gibbs, Gibbs, and Lennox2described in 1937 a characteristic seizure pattern in the EEG which was frequently associated with the occurrence of these symptoms and suggested the adoption of the term psychomotor epilepsy. The studies of Jasper and Kershman,3Jasper and Penfield,4MacLean,5and Liberson6made it apparent that the focus of pathological activity is in these cases