Abstract
Background Eating epilepsy (EE) is a rare form of reflex epilepsy in which seizures are induced
by eating. It is known that most patients with eating seizures, in fact, suffer from
symptomatic temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), whereas only a few patients with epileptic
spasms induced by eating (E-ES) have been reported.
Patient Description The patient was an 8-year-old girl whose magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the
head detected dysgenesis of the corpus callosum, cerebellar hypogenesis, marked cerebral
asymmetry, broad polymicrogyria, periventricular heterotopia, and closed lip-type
schizencephaly. She experienced E-ES as the second form of recurrent seizures after
the first recurrence of spontaneous ES. After E-ES occurred, the EEG findings in the
right hemisphere, predominantly over the right centrotemporal region, were clearly
exacerbated, although the interictal EEG originally showed left-side–dominant asymmetric
hypsarrhythmia. The ictal EEG of the E-ES showed diffuse large triphasic (negative-positive-negative)
potentials, predominantly over the right centrotemporoparietal region.
Conclusions This is a unique case because the E-ES were recurrent ES, although the previous ES
were spontaneous, which may provide insight into the mechanism of E-ES.
Keywords
eating epilepsy - epileptic spasms - reflex seizures - topiramate
