Is epilepsy a sign of reduced intelligence?
Epilepsy is not an indicator of intelligence. Epilepsy affects people of average intelligence as well as those above and below average. Some people with mental retardation may have epilepsy, but few with epilepsy are mentally retarded. Epilepsy may also accompany other neurological or developmental disorders, but this does not mean that everyone with epilepsy also has another type of brain dysfunction. More than a few people known for their intelligence have had epilepsy, most notably Julius Caesar and Napoleon, Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Socrates and Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and creator of the Nobel Prize.
