Alterations in the contents of consciousness in partial epileptic seizures.

People with partial epilepsy experience widespread distortions in their subjective experience during seizures, yet the pattern of those distortions remains consistent from one seizure to the next. A standardized questionnaire called the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI) proved suitable for capturing these changes in consciousness. The findings suggest that the PCI could help researchers and clinicians better understand the nature of phenomenal consciousness in epilepsy.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Epilepsy research suffers from a deficiency of systematic studies concerning the phenomenology of the contents of consciousness during seizures, partially because of the lack of suitable research methods. The Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI), a standardized, valid, and reliable questionnaire, was used here to study which dimensions of the contents of consciousness are distorted during partial epileptic seizures compared with baseline. Further, the similarity of the altered pattern of subjective experiences across recurring seizures was also explored. Our results indicate that patients with epilepsy report alterations on most dimensions of the contents of consciousness in conjunction with seizures, but individual seizure experiences remain similar from one seizure to another. The PCI was found suitable for the assessment of subjective experiences during epileptic seizures and could be a valuable tool in providing new information about phenomenal consciousness in epilepsy in both the research and clinical settings.