For patients with medial TLE whose seizures remain uncontrolled after trials of several types of anticonvulsants (that is, the epilepsy is intractable), surgical excision of the affected temporal lobe may be considered. Surgical interventions
Epilepsy surgery has been performed since the 1860s and doctors have observed that it is highly effective in producing freedom from seizures. However, it was not until 2001 that a scientifically sound study was carried out to examine the effectiveness of temporal lobectomy.Temporal lobe surgery can be complicated by decreased cognitive function. However, after temporal lobectomy, memory function is supported by the opposite temporal lobe; and recruitment of the frontal lobe. Cognitive rehabilitation may also help. Other treatments
Where surgery is not recommended, further management options include new (including experimental) anticonvulsants, and vagus nerve stimulation. The ketogenic diet is also recommended for children, and some adults. Other options include brain cortex responsive neural stimulators, deep brain stimulation, stereotactic radiosurgery, such as the gamma knife, and laser ablation. Effects on society
The first to record and catalog the abnormal symptoms and signs of TLE was Norman Geschwind. He found a constellation of symptoms that included hypergraphia, hyperreligiosity, collapse, and pedantism, now called Geschwind syndrome. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran explored the neural basis of the hyperreligiosity seen in TLE using the galvanic skin response (GSR), which correlates with emotional arousal, to determine whether the hyperreligiosity seen in TLE was due to an overall heightened emotional state or was specific to religious stimuli. Ramachandran presented two subjects with neutral, sexually arousing and religious words while measuring GSR.
Ramachandran was able to show that patients with TLE showed enhanced emotional responses to the religious words, diminished responses to the sexually charged words, and normal responses to the neutral words. This study was presented as an abstract at a neuroscience conference and referenced in Ramachandrans book, Phantoms in the Brain, but it has never been published in the peer-reviewed scientific press.A study in 2015, reported that intrinsic religiosity and religiosity outside of organized religion were higher in patients with epilepsy than in controls. Lower education level, abnormal background EEG activity, and hippocampal sclerosis have been found to be contributing factors for religiosity in TLE.TLE has been suggested as a materialistic explanation for the revelatory experiences of prominent religious figures such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Saint Paul, Joan of Arc, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and Joseph Smith. These experiences are described (in possibly unreliable accounts) as complex interactions with their visions; but possibly (and dependent on the reliability of historical accounts, often made by acolytes) lack the stereotypy, amnestic periods, and automatisms or generalized motor events, which are characteristic of TLE. Psychiatric conditions with psychotic spectrum symptoms might be more plausible physical explanation of these experiences. It has been suggested that Pope Pius IXs doctrine of the immaculate conception was influenced by his forensically diagnosed partial epilepsy.In 2016, a case history found that a male temporal lobe epileptic patient experienced a vision of God following a temporal lobe seizure, while undergoing EEG monitoring.