Introduction: Affective disorders in people with epilepsy seem to be different from patients with primary mood disorders.
Objective: to determine the clinical characteristics that typifies depression in patients with temporal Lobe Epilepsy.
Patients and methods: Forty patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and depression were enrolled in the study. Thirty one patients with primary depressive disorder were recruited as control group. Depression was clinically evaluated in both groups. The discriminate analysis was used to determine the main clinical features of depression in patients with epilepsy. The differentiation between groups in total scores of Mood disorders through the International Psychiatry Interview was used to determine the atypical sign of depressive symptoms in patients with epilepsy. Logistic regression was utilized to analyze the possible relationship between neurobiological functioning and depressive symptoms in patients with epilepsy. Results: Sixty two percent of patients had a mood disorder not classified in CIE-10 and DSM-IV. Perictal anhedonia associated with insomnia, guilty thoughts, psychomotor slowness, inattention, restlessness, irritability, faintness became the clinical profiles of depression in patients with epilepsy. Age of onset of epilepsy, family history of psychiatric disorders, number of seizures per month, left temporal Lobe Epilepsy, and bilateral hippocampal atrophy were the most important determinants of mood disorders in our study.
Conclusion: Brief perictal depressive symptoms associated with dysphoria, anxiety and phobias, typify the clinical profile of depressive syndrome in patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.
