This morning, Dr. Pourdeyhimi and I saw a patient that has sunflower syndrome. Sunflower syndrome is a type of seizure that is when a person turns towards the light and waves a hand in front of their eye while the brain is seizing at the same time. This is a very rare syndrome and does not have too much research done on it therefore, there has been some stigma and confusion around the syndrome as well. The stigma around the syndrome is mainly related to the fact that there is no solid scientific cure for the disease so before there was more research on it, it was seen that the person was self-inducing a seizure for attention. This is not the reality and as the syndrome continues to be studied, there should be more known about it. In addition to visiting this patient, this afternoon, Dr. Pourdeyhimi showed me the results of an EEG, which measures the activity in the brain and explains that there are little bumps in the activity, but if those “sparks”/bumps catch on “fire”/large dips, a seizure could be occurring. On an EEG, the seizures are seen as large bumps of brain activity that are abnormal and different from those “sparks” of activity.
This is a picture of an EEG. It shows the routine sparks of brain activity, but then it also shows dips in the activity which depending on the size of the dip and its different aspects, can show a possible seizure. The different lines show different sides and locations of the brain.