In a tasty new paper, British neurologists Kate El Bouzidi et al report on the case of a woman who suffered epileptic seizures whenever she saw, smelled, or ate food:A 44-year-old right-handed woman was walking in the Scottish highlands. Upon unwrapping her lunch, she had a focal seizure with witnessed onset on the right side of the face and secondary generalization... She was airlifted to hospital. Three weeks later, the smell of food triggered another seizure and she was admitted to the neurology unit...Even hospital fare was able to provoke the attacks:
The next morning, the patient had a simple partial seizure after eating a spoonful of porridge. Thereafter, most meals triggered seizures, as did other food-related stimuli such as being offered a piece of cake, seeing her visitors pass around food at her bedside, and smelling the hospital dinner trolley.
Anti-convulsant drugs failed to control the seizures. An MRI scan revealed an abnormal mass and electrode recordings from the surface of the brain confirmed that the seizure activity was starting nearby. The mass was surgically removed - it turned out to have been a grade IV glioblastoma cancer - which put an end to the seizures, although sadly we're told that the surgery was "subtotal" i.e. they weren't able to remove the tumour entirely.
The authors note that eating-induced seizures have been reported hundreds of times, most commonly in India and Sri Lanka, curiously enough, but this is the first known case in which merely seeing or thinking about food was also a trigger. Why it happens is a mystery: presumably, neural activation in response to the taste or smell of food somehow spills over into the epileptic focus... but the details are sketchy.
The authors note that eating-induced seizures have been reported hundreds of times, most commonly in India and Sri Lanka, curiously enough, but this is the first known case in which merely seeing or thinking about food was also a trigger. Why it happens is a mystery: presumably, neural activation in response to the taste or smell of food somehow spills over into the epileptic focus... but the details are sketchy.In this case, seizures were specifically triggered by food-related stimuli in the context of hunger. The finding of a seizure focus in the left frontal operculum, adjacent to the tumor, is consistent with the hypothesis that activation of this region by appetite triggered seizure activity that then propagated to the surrounding cortex and was manifest clinically as a motor seizure.
El Bouzidi K, Duncan S, Whittle IR, & Butler CR (2010). Lesional reflex epilepsy associated with the thought of food. Neurology, 74 (7), 610-2 PMID: 20157165
2 comments:
Hello
Hmmmm ?In a reverse sort of way I understand this.
Is this the same area of the brain that controls the smell(s) that a person gets when they have an aura ?
Every description for a smell is out there in peoples minds,they range from dusty ,dirty, to a burnt meat or burnt bread smell .
These smells are often so INTENSE that the aura brings on panic that brings on a partial seizure that often leads to a gran mal seizure.
This is a revolving door that never ends.
Another deep thought! If the person has a synesthetic effect when they see the item, food etc.
They all ready know every time they smell a burnt hot dog they are having an aura ,so when they just really do see a burnt hot dog their brain tells them to have a seizure? Hmmm? Rick
What wichitarick said makes sense. Also, if it was the appetie control centers of the brain that had this tormour, then anything that stimulated that area of the brain even the thought of food, probably casued it to go heywire and thus, seizure time! Smelling, tasting and even thinking about food revolve around the appetite centers, it doesn't take too big of a rocket scientist (or a neurologist, for that matter) to figure it out.
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