title: Epilepsy surgery in professional musicians: subjective and objective reports of three cases.
abstract: We describe a small series of three professional musicians who had right (two patients) and left (one patient) temporal lobe epilepsy surgery with the histological diagnoses of hippocampal sclerosis (two patients) and benign tumor (one patient, xanthoastrocytoma). The musicians were asked to complete a questionnaire about their musical abilities before and after surgery with respect to special musical skills like melody processing, musical memory, rhythm, meter, harmony/dissonance, timbre, concentration and endurance, emotionality, and absolute pitch. In addition, the musicians submitted reports of their experiences. Surgical outcome was excellent with respect to seizures and professional skills. The two patients with right temporal lobe epilepsy reported improvements of specific musical abilities. Vocational development was very positive in all three patients. We conclude that epilepsy surgery can be safe and rewarding in professional musicians and propose initiating a database on epilepsy surgery in this special group of patients.
authors.affiliation: Epilepsy Centre Bethel, Maraweg 21, D-33617 Bielefeld, Germany. Reinhard.Schulz@evkb.de
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schulz
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Horstmann
authors.forename: Hennric
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jokeit
authors.forename: Friedrich G
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Woermann
authors.forename: Alois
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ebner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000654:Amobarbital; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D019635:Neurosurgical Procedures; D009790:Occupations; D013663:Teaching; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives; D000654:Amobarbital