Neocortical temporal lobe epilepsy

Neocortical temporal lobe epilepsy (NTLE) comprises a heterogeneous group of epilepsies with focal seizures characterized by auditory, somatosensory, or psychic auras followed by motionless staring, early contralateral clonic activity often secondarily generalizing. Neurophysiologic findings in NTLE are typically a predominance of lateral temporal interictal epileptiform activity (IEA) and an ictal onset pattern consisting of irregular, hemispheric delta slowing. Advanced neurophysiologic techniques such as EEG and magnetoencephalography source imaging can help to determine the area generating the initial and propagated interictal and ictal activities and may limit the number of patients requiring long-term invasive recordings before epilepsy surgery.