Epileptic Disorders
MENUReflex epilepsies: progress in understanding Volume 7, issue 1, March 2005
Auteur(s) : Paolo Tinuper
Department of Neurological Science University of Bologna Bologna, Italy
Reflex epilepsies : progress in understanding
P. Wolf, Y. Inoue, B. Zifkin
John Libbey Eurotext, 2004, 156 pp.
This book collects contributions giving an exhaustive overview
of the ideas and data discussed at the
12th International Bethel-Cleveland Epilepsy
Symposium on reflex epilepsies held in Biefeld, Germany, in
June 2001.
As the Editors state in the introduction, the title of the work
highlights the authors’ intention to bring new knowledge to the
nosography and mechanisms of the different forms of reflex
epilepsies and, parallely, through such knowledge, to better
understand epilepsy itself.
The book contains 14 chapters written by
36 distinguished epileptologists from around the world. The
first three chapters are devoted to photosensitivity, offering a
comprehensive review of experimental, neurophysiological and
clinical aspects of photosensitive seizures and including the
suggestion of innovative non-pharmacological methods to prevent
photosensitivity by means of optical filters.
The question whether the induction of seizures by ideation,
calculation, playing games, writing, or drawing have the same
reflex epileptic mechanism of seizures provoked by thinking is
discussed in depth and new insights on functional imaging in
seizures provoked by reading, and the link between primary reading
epilepsy and idiopathic generalised epilepsy are pointed out in the
following chapters.
Thereafter, the book considers the neurophysiology of musical
perception in musicogenic epilepsy and the complexity of emotional
factors able to precipitate epileptic seizures. Three chapters are
devoted to seizures precipitated by hot water and by eating,
discussing the not yet clarified effective neurophysiologocal
mechanism. Finally, the last chapters of the book deal with
seizures provoked by proprioceptive stimuli, in particular
discussing the role played in this condition by cortical
malformations.
Overall, the book represents a complete update on reflex
epilepsies and opens interesting suggestions in the pathophysiology
of generalized epilepsies as opposed to focal conditions. The text
is easy to read, and the figures, particularly the polygraphic
tracings, are clear and impressive.
This is the third book on reflex epilepsies in the epileptic
literature panorama and appears six years after the previous
volume. Advances in complex technologies for investigating
epileptic seizures and the experience of the authors in this field
are the hallmarks of this work.