Relationship of focal epileptogenesis to hemispheric motor prevalence in human ontogenesis.

The authors describe the clinical and electroencephalographic findings in 220 children with focal and secondary generalized epilepsies without gross structural aetiology, with the aim of evaluating the significance of hemispheric motor prevalence for the formation, activity and possibility of compensation of the focus. Focal epileptogenesis was observed significantly more often: a) in partial seizures with elementary symptomatology in the motor non-dominant hemisphere, b) in the motor non-dominant hemisphere in boys, c) in the whole series, irrespective of the form of epilepsy and sex, in the motor nondominant hemisphere in children under the age of six and in the motor dominant hemisphere in children over the age of six. The findings in partial seizures with an elementary motor symptomatology probably arise from the very close relationship to motor areas of the cerebral cortex, in boys from evidently greater hemispheric functional asymmetry than in girls and the age correlation from unequal maturation of functionally identical parts of the brain hemispheres during ontogenesis.