A study of epileptic psychosis using magnetic resonance imaging.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used in patients with epilepsy and psychosis. From 50 patients with epilepsy, a subgroup of 12 patients were categorised by the Present State Examination (PSE) as having nuclear schizophrenia (NS) and then compared with an epileptic control group with no psychiatric history. Further, patients with hallucinations were compared with patients without hallucinations. No differences in T1 relaxation times in any regions of interest were noted in the NS group compared with the other group. However, patients with hallucinations had a significantly higher T1 value in the left temporal lobe. These findings support the concept that specific abnormalities in limbic system structures relate to the phenomenology of the psychoses of epilepsy, especially left temporal lobe epilepsy.