The problem of subclinical localised paroxysmal rhythmic discharges (psychomotor variant discharges). Report of two cases.

Two cases are reported of patients whose EEGs showed localised rhythmic seizure activity in the midtemporal regions of one or both hemispheres, unaccompanied by any clinical symptoms: the patients' histories differed: one was of classic migraine and the other complex partial epilepsy. The frequency and morphology of the paroxysmal anomalies was identical in the waking state and in sleep. The nosographic classification of the phenomenon is discussed with reference to Gibbs' reports regarding the "psychomotor variant type of seizure discharge", to the work of Lipman and Hughes on "rhythmic mid-temporal discharge" and to that of Westmoreland and Klass on the "subclinical rhythmic EEG discharge of adults". But in contrast to the last phenomenon there were no signs pointing to a diffuse cerebrovascular disease. Reports of such a pattern are rare in the European literature and nonexistent in the Italian literature, facts which make an ordinary interpretation of the phenomenon difficult.