Effects of carbamazepine on interictal psychopathology in TLE with ictal fear.

Significant interictal psychopathology was manifested by a patient with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) who experienced an aura of intense fear. She was found to be taking a subtherapeutic dosage of carbamazepine; induction of therapeutic blood levels of carbamazepine resulted in improvement in the interictal EEG, decreased duration and intensity of affect during the epileptic attacks, and a normalization of behavioral and emotional functioning during the interictal period.