Epilepsy & behavior : E&B
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Epilepsy & behavior : E&B · Nov 2005
Epilepsy surgery in professional musicians: subjective and objective reports of three cases.
We describe a small series of three professional musicians who had right (two patients) and left (one patient) temporal lobe epilepsy surgery with the histological diagnoses of hippocampal sclerosis (two patients) and benign tumor (one patient, xanthoastrocytoma). The musicians were asked to complete a questionnaire about their musical abilities before and after surgery with respect to special musical skills like melody processing, musical memory, rhythm, meter, harmony/dissonance, timbre, concentration and endurance, emotionality, and absolute pitch. In addition, the musicians submitted reports of their experiences. ⋯ The two patients with right temporal lobe epilepsy reported improvements of specific musical abilities. Vocational development was very positive in all three patients. We conclude that epilepsy surgery can be safe and rewarding in professional musicians and propose initiating a database on epilepsy surgery in this special group of patients.
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Epilepsy & behavior : E&B · Nov 2005
Biography Historical ArticleThe idiosyncratic aspects of the epilepsy of Fyodor Dostoevsky.
The goal of this article is to review the idiosyncratic aspects of the epilepsy of Fyodor Dostoevsky, one of the greatest writers of all time. The onset of his seizures is controversial, with some evidence pointing to his childhood and other reports that would place the onset in his teens or his twenties. His life in prison in Siberia and then in the Russian army is reviewed. ⋯ A review of recent data on the risks to offspring of epileptic fathers confirms that the etiology of Dostoevsky's epilepsy was probably inherited and that he probably had an idiopathic generalized epilepsy with minor involvement of the temporal lobe. A relationship is seen between his severe obsession with gambling and his epilepsy. Finally, Fyodor Dostoevsky is an excellent example of the "temporal lobe personality."