Homicides with Partial Limbic Seizures: Is Chemical Seizure Kindling the Culprit?

Abstract

Recreational intermittent, subthreshold amounts of alcohol and/or drugs might evoke chemical kindling of nonconvulsive, simple partial seizures in the limbic system, with secondary, brief, prefrontal lobe dysfunctioning; preserved core consciousness; and memory for the bizarre, out-of-character, motiveless, unplanned homicidal acts performed during a fleeting psychosis. Such acts persisted for 2 to l0 minutes despite forceful external interruption in three single, white male loners. In contrast, five nonusers, with otherwise similar symptomatology, aborted their homicidal attacks on external interruption, in a previously proposed syndrome with only experiential kindling with memory revival of past hurts in limbic psychotic trigger reaction. Thus, this article hypothesizes that either chemical kindling alone or as a superimposition on experiential kindling might occur in the form of unusual persistence or enhancement of partial seizures.