[Convulsive incidents and EEG changes during treatment with tricyclic antidepressive agents]

Abstract

The study of the action of tricyclic antidepressant on epilepsy and E.E.G. leads to a separation between two groups of patients treated with these drugs : 1. The epileptic patients with personnal or family history of epilepsy have a higher risk of epileptic seizures during these treatments. However, a certain number of them get better as far as seizures and personnality disturbances are concerned. On these patients E.E.G. appears an activation of the pattern. We must precise that, with a proper anti-epileptic treatement, there are only rare seizures and, in any case, epilepsy is not a contra-indication to antidepressant treatments. E.E.G. gets even better in a few cases. 2. In patients without history of epilepsy, seizures are rare. If they appear, one finds several predisposing factors, alcoholism being the most frequent. High dosages are not a constant factor. Previous E.C.T. could increase the risk of seizures. On these patients E.E.G., the action of tricyclic antidepressant is not constant : we found important changes as well as no changes at all. The changes would be an aggravation with an epileptic pattern or slow rythms, as well as the pattern getting better. There is no correlation between clinical manifestations and E.E.G. patterns.