Failure to recall (but not to remember): pure transient amnesia during nonconvulsive status epilepticus

We report a patient with a generalized frontal-predominant nonconvulsive status epilepticus without clinically apparent altered consciousness. The patient was examined and EEG performed during and after the episode. Severe retrograde and anterograde amnesia during the seizure, contrasting with a preservation of ongoing memories formation that could be assessed only after its resolution, suggests a transient disconnection of access to stored representations. This unusual memory disorder is both clinically and electrographically dissimilar to other reported cases of transient epileptic amnesia. Although the patient probably had numerous episodes previously, there was no history of overt seizure.