Aura

Clinic

• An aura is a perceptual disturbance experienced by some with epilepsy or migraine. An epileptic aura is a seizure.

Epileptic and migraine auras are due to the involvement of specific areas of the brain, which are those that determine the symptoms of the aura. Therefore, if the visual area is affected, the aura will consist of visual symptoms, while if a sensory one, then sensory symptoms will occur.

Epileptic auras are subjective sensory or psychic phenomena due to a focal seizure, i.e. a seizure that originates from that area of the brain responsible for the function which then expresses itself with the symptoms of the aura. It is important because it makes it clear where the alteration causing the seizure is located. An epileptic aura is in most cases followed by other manifestations of a seizure, for example a convulsion, since the epileptic discharge spreads to other parts of the brain. Rarely it remains isolated. Auras, when they occur, allow some people who have epilepsy time to prevent injury to themselves and/or others when they lose consciousness.

Motor auras

Somatosensory auras:

• Tingling, numbness

• Pain

Visual changes

• Bright lights and blobs
• Zigzag lines
• Distortions in the size or shape of objects
• Vibrating visual field
• Scintillating scotoma
  • Shimmering, pulsating patches, often curved
  • Tunnel vision
• Scotoma
  • Blind or dark spots
  • Curtain like effect over one eye
  • Slowly spreading spots
• Kaleidoscope effects
• Temporary blindness in one or both eyes
• Heightened sensitivity to light

Auditory changes

• Hearing voices or sounds that do not exist: auditory hallucinations
• Modification of voices or sounds in the environment: buzzing, tremolo, amplitude modulation or other modulations
• Heightened sensitivity to hearing
• Vestibular dysfunction causing vertigo

Other sensations

• Strange smells (phantosmia) or tastes (gustatory hallucinations)
• Heightened sensitivity to smell
• Synesthesia
• Déjà vu or jamais vu
• Cephalic aura, a perception of movement of the head or inside the head
• Abdominal aura, such as an epigastric rising sensation
• Nausea
• A sudden feeling of anxiety, fear, or foreboding
• Numbness or tingling (paresthesia)
• Weakness on one side of the body (hemiparesis)
• Feelings of being separated from or floating above one's body (dissociation)
• Sensation of limbs or teeth growing
• Feeling of overheating and sudden perspiration
• Inability to speak (aphasia) or slurred speech