SNOMEDCT: 7689009; ORPHA: 166433;
Rowan et al. (1970) described a girl who had major and minor seizures that were related to pattern and photosensitivity. The mother also had EEG discharges during reading. The daughter's attacks were precipitated by television-viewing. A younger sister had had one febrile convulsion. The father had had epilepsy between ages 5 and 8 years. No studies of him were reported. Daly and Forster (1975) diagnosed primary reading epilepsy by special electroencephalographic studies in a 16-year-old youth after his first grand mal seizure. Adolescence is the usual age of onset. The seizure occurred while he was reading the sports page of a newspaper, but for about a year he had experienced jaw jerking while reading, especially when reading aloud before an audience. Reading epilepsy was diagnosed in a first cousin and in 2 of the proband's sibs. Some members of the family showed the centrencephalic EEG trait (117100). The relation was unclear. Affected mother and daughter were reported by Matthews and Wright (1967) and 2 sisters by Lassater (1962).
Daly, R. F., Forster, F. M. Inheritance of reading epilepsy. Neurology 25: 1051-1054, 1975. [PubMed: 810738] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1212/wnl.25.11.1051]
Lassater, G. M. Reading epilepsy. Arch. Neurol. 6: 492-495, 1962. [PubMed: 14462571] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1001/archneur.1962.00450240070008]
Matthews, W. B., Wright, F. K. Hereditary primary reading epilepsy. Neurology 17: 919-921, 1967. [PubMed: 6069093] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1212/wnl.17.9.919]
Rowan, A. J., Heathfield, K. W. G., Scott, D. F. Is reading epilepsy inherited? J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat. 33: 476-478, 1970. [PubMed: 5505674] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.33.4.476]