Ictal movement disorders and hypothalamic hamartoma

We report the case of a woman presenting with unusual, symptomatic epilepsy related to a hypothalamic hamartoma, in the absence of mental retardation or precocious puberty. The seizures manifested themselves clinically as characteristic, paroxysmal movement disorders, such as choreic/ballistic movement. This type of phenomenon is rarely of epileptic origin: we thus suggest that the movement disorder observed here could be due to functional disorganization of the basal ganglia network by the epileptic discharge, causing loss of the inhibition of thalamic activity and thus allowing the occurrence of abnormal movements.