Neologistic speech automatisms during complex partial seizures.

Abstract

There are no documented cases of seizures causing reiterative neologistic speech automatisms. We report an 18-year-old right-handed woman with stereotypic ictal speech automatisms characterized by phonemic jargon and reiterative neologisms. Video-EEG during the reiterative neologisms demonstrated rhythmic delta activity, which was most prominent in the left posterior temporal region. At surgery, there was an arteriovenous malformation impinging on the left supramarginal gyrus and the posterior portion of the superior temporal gyrus. Though intelligible speech automatisms can result from seizure foci in either hemisphere, neologistic speech automatisms may implicate a focus in the language-dominant hemisphere.