List of people with epilepsy

The following categorized chronological list contains only those people for whom a firm and uncontested diagnosis was made during their lifetime. Acting Leadership, politics and royalty Music Sport Art and writing Miscellaneous ==Retrospective diagnosis==

The following people were not diagnosed with epilepsy during their lifetime. A retrospective diagnosis is speculative and, as detailed below, can be wrong. Religious figures There is a long-standing notion that epilepsy and religion are linked, Several of Bucke's cases are also mentioned in J.E. Bryant's 1953 book, Genius and Epilepsy, which has a list of more than 20 people that combines the great and the mystical. Slater and Beard renewed the interest in TLE and religious experience in the 1960s. Norman Geschwind described behavioral changes related to temporal lobe epilepsy in the 1970s and 1980s. Now called Geschwind syndrome, he defined a cluster of specific personality characteristics often found in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, which include increased religiosity. Neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick, in the 1980s and 1990s, also found a relationship between the right temporal lobe and mystical experience, but also found that pathology or brain damage is only one of many possible causal mechanisms for these experiences. He questioned the earlier accounts of religious figures with temporal lobe epilepsy, noticing that "very few true examples of the ecstatic aura and the temporal lobe seizure had been reported in the world scientific literature prior to 1980". According to Fenwick, "It is likely that the earlier accounts of temporal lobe epilepsy and temporal lobe pathology and the relation to mystic and religious states owes more to the enthusiasm of their authors than to a true scientific understanding of the nature of temporal lobe functioning." The occurrence of intense religious feelings in people with epilepsy in general is considered rare, The occurrence of religious experiences in TLE-patients may as well be explained by religious attribution, due to the background of these patients. Nevertheless, the neurological research of mystical experiences is a growing field of research, searching for specific neurological explanations of mystical experiences. Study of ecstatic seizures may provide clues for the neurological mechanisms giving rise to mystical experiences, such as the anterior insular cortex, which is involved in self-awareness and subjective certainty. People listed below are not necessarily known to have epilepsy nor indicate a scholarly consensus in favour of epilepsy; merely that such a diagnosis has been suggested. ==Misdiagnosis==

Many famous people are incorrectly recorded as having epilepsy. In some cases there is no evidence at all to justify a diagnosis of epilepsy. In others, the symptoms have been misinterpreted. In some, the seizures were provoked by other causes, such as acute illness or alcohol withdrawal. No evidence The following people are often reported to have had epilepsy but there is no evidence that they had any attacks or illnesses that even resembled epilepsy. Misdiagnosis by association Many individuals have been mistakenly recorded as having epilepsy due to an association with someone (real or fictional) who did have epilepsy, or something similar. Provoked seizures The following people may have had one or more epileptic seizures but since the seizures were provoked, they do not result in a diagnosis of epilepsy: Similar conditions There are many conditions that produce paroxysmal attacks or events. These events (especially in historical, non-medical literature such as biographies) are often called fits, seizures or convulsions. Those terms do not exclusively apply to epilepsy and such events are sometimes categorised as non-epileptic seizures. When studied in detail, the attacks were more fully described as "fits of spleen", "seized by pain", "convulsed with anguish", etc. ==Notes and references==