Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-r6qrq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T19:28:49.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ontogenesis of chronic epileptic psychoses: a reanalysis1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

David C. Taylor
Affiliation:
Human Development Research Unit, Park Hospital for Children, Old Road, Headington, Oxford

Synopsis

As part of a study of various aspects of differential development between the sexes, the series of patients with epileptic psychoses published by Slater, Beard, and Glithero (1963) was reanalysed in the light of a hypothesis of differential cerebral maturation. As predicted by the hypothesis, females had an earlier onset of epilepsy and of psychosis than males. Whereas the sex ratio in epilepsy normally shows an excess of males, the sex ratio in epileptic psychoses is almost equal. Unlike most chronic temporal lobe epilepsies, the epilepsies which were later associated with psychosis arose largely within a specific developmental epoch around the pubertal growth spurt. Some of the clinical and biological implications of this finding are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Davison, K., and Bagley, C. R. (1969). Schizophrenia-like psychoses associated with organic disorders of the central nervous system: a review of the literature. British Journal of Psychiatry, Special Publication, No. 4, 113184.Google Scholar
Falconer, M. A., and Taylor, D. C. (1968). Surgical treatment of drug resistant epilepsy due to mesial temporal sclerosis. Archives of Neurology, 19, 4, 353361.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flor-Henry, P. (1966). Psychosis and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. M.D. Thesis. Edinburgh University. (Unpublished.)Google Scholar
Flor-Henry, P. (1969). Psychosis and temporal lobe epilepsy: a controlled investigation. Epilepsia, 10, 363395.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Department of Health and Social Security (1969). People with Epilepsy. Report of a Joint Sub-Committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee on the Health and Welfare of Handicapped Persons. H.M.S.O.: London.Google Scholar
Kolvin, I., Ounsted, C., and Roth, M. (1971). A series of articles to be published shortly in the British Journal of Psychiatry.Google Scholar
Lennox, M. A. (1949). Febrile convulsions in childhood: their relationship to adult epilepsy. Journal of Pediatrics, 35, 427435.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lishman, W. A. (1968). Brain damage in relation to psychiatric disability after head injury. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 373410.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ounsted, C., Taylor, D. C. (Editors) (1971). Gender Differences: their Ontogeny and Significance in Developmental Medicine. Churchill: London. (In press.)Google Scholar
Slater, E., Beard, A. W., and Glithero, E. (1963). The schizophrenia-like psychoses of epilepsy. British Journal of Psychiatry, 109, 95150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater, E., and Moran, P. A. P. (1969). The schizophrenia-like psychoses of epilepsy: relation between ages of onset. British Journal of Psychiatry. 115, 599600.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tanner, J. M., Whilehouse, R. H., and Taikaishi, M. (1966). Standards from birth to maturity for height, weight, height velocity, and weight velocity: British children, 1965. Part I. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 41, 454471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, D. C., and Falconer, M. A. (1968). Clinical, socioeconomic, and psychological changes after temporal lobectomy for epilepsy. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 12471261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, D. C., and Ounsted, C. (1971). Age, sex, and hemispheric vulnerability in the outcome of seizures in response to fever. In Cerebral Anoxia. Edited by Brierley, J. B.. Heinemann: London. (In press.)Google Scholar
Taylor, D. C. (1969 a). The Outcome of Temporal Lobectomy fur Epilepsy. M.D. Thesis. London University. (Unpublished.)Google Scholar
Taylor, D. C. (1969 b). Differential rates of cerebral maturation between sexes and between hemispheres. Evidence from epilepsy. Lancet, 2, 140142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed