[Endogenous psychopharmacology 2006;59(09-10)]

[The temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most important kind of partial epilepsy both from practical and research point of view, where studies brought many new results in the last years. This article is a state of art review with a special emphasis on medial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). We show the clinical symptoms, EEG and neuroimaging signs, the psychiatric co-morbidities and psyhosocial consequences. Etiological factors, among them hippocampal sclerosis and hippocampal reorganisation is assessed in a more detailed form. The possibilities of pharmacological and surgical treatment are also shown, together with the brief outline of the Hungarian situation. TLE is presented as a model for the development of partial epilepsies.]

[The most effective type of epilepsy surgery in adults is temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) surgery. Three quarter of the patients become seizure free, however the remaining patients experience seizures after resection. In our study we analyzed retrospectively the possible electro-clinical, neuroimaging and surgery-related outcome predictors in 94 adult patients who had anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) from the material of Epilepsy Centre of the National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Budapest since the beginning of the surgery program in 1989 until 2001. Three outcome endpoints were chosen: the seizure status at the last visit, the longest seizure free period and the time to the first non-acute postoperative seizure. The predictors were assessed by multivariate and Cox regression methods. After one year of surgery 72% of the patients were seizure free, after two years 67% and after five years 59%. Factors predicting favorable outcome in TLE surgery were: typical temporomesial aura, strictly unilateral interictal anterotemporal spikes, unilateral ictal onset, slow contralateral propagation, hippocampal sclerosis (HS) as etiology. Factors predicting poor outcome in TLE surgery were: increase in seizure frequency in the last two preoperative years, presence of preoperative psychiatric disturbances, ictal contralateral propagation, MRI lesion distant from the surgery site, incongruency of data of preoperative investigations, postoperative sequels and non-HS type MR residuum.]

[Multiple system atrophy (MSA) belongs to the neurodegenerative diseases of the nervous system, but it is different from them in many aspects: it has no familiar form and no genetic factor was identified in the pathomechanism. Its neuropathology is unique too, because oligodendroglial cells are harbouring the main pathological burden. It was described in MSA that there is no elective neuronal degeneration in neurodegenerative disorders: the glial cells show the same patochemical and structural abnormalities as found in the neurones. The discovery of the glial cytoplasmic inclusions, as a pathognostic marker for MSA, has directed attention to the glial cells in other neurodegenerative disorders. As a result of this, there are several neurodegenerative diseases nowadays in which glial inclusions were described, similar to the neuronal inclusions in their structural and biochemical properties and some of them became the diagnostic marker of the disease. In our review we summarize the clinical features, the history and the neuropathology of MSA and we discuss its special features.]