[Diagnosis of seizures originating in the amygdala and the hippocampus]

Lesions in the hippocampus of some epileptic patients were first described one hundred and seventy years ago. Since then our knowledge of the relationship between epileptic seizures and temporal lobe lesions has greatly improved.

The aim of this paper is to systematize the symptomatology of the hippocampus and amygdala seizures. These seizures may have a great number of different clinical features: special 'loss' or 'impairment of consciousness', epileptic automatisms and autonomic changes. Moreover, at the beginning of seizures some patients have reported experiences having subjective qualities similar to those experienced in everyday life. P Gloor named them 'experiential phenomena' and subdivided them into affective (eg: fear), perceptual (eg: visual hallucinations) and mnemonic (eg: 'déjà vu' illusion).

It is very important to know the contribution of the hippocampus and the amygdala to the symptomatology of temporal lobe seizures due to the progress of MRI diagnostic possibilities that are improving the surgical outcome.