Ictal level of awareness in psychogenic nonepileptic seizures correlates with the experience of traumatic events in childhood: A cross sectional study

Abstract There is a great amount of research regarding the particular ictal manifestations of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) with a focus on the differences to epileptic seizures (Vogrig et al., 2019 [4]; Tyson et al., 2018 [5]; De Paola et al., 2016 [6]). Most of the research aims to define guidelines for diagnosing PNES in differentiation from epilepsy, because this differentiation is clinically relevant for clinical neurological settings. In contrast, very few studies aimed to gain insight about particular ictal manifestations of the different semiological appearances of PNES regarding distinctive psychological processes or prognostic outcomes (Brown, 2016 [7]; Pick et al., 2017 [8]; Brown, 2006 [9]; Cohen, 2013). One study revealed that a higher level of mental dissociation and cognitive impairment was associated with a higher level of traumatization in patients with PNES (Pick et al., 2017 [8]). We analyzed the seizure semiology with a focus on the level of awareness in 60 patients with PNES. Patients were divided into two groups: one with an impaired awareness during their seizures and the other one with preserved awareness during their seizures. We assessed the amount of adverse traumatic experience in childhood with the “Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ)”. We found that patients with PNES with impaired awareness showed more childhood traumatic experiences in the CTQ, especially on the subscales of sexual and emotional abuse as well as physical neglect. Furthermore, patients with PNES with impaired awareness during seizures were significantly younger, more often female, showed a lower degree on education, and a higher amount of self-harm behavior compared with patients with PNES with preserved awareness during seizures. Our study presents clinical evidence for the potential significance of the level of awareness during PNES for the etiology of PNES. Our results point toward the existence of clinical subgroups of patients with PNES with distinctive etiological mechanisms and indicate that seizure semiology might help to differentiate those potential subgroups.