A four-line letter, signed by means of the attending doctor of Congress and launched by means of Senator Mitch McConnell on Thursday, urged that his fresh spells of speechlessness had been connected to “occasional lightheadedness” possibly attributable to his restoration from a concussion remaining wintry weather or “dehydration.”

However seven neurologists, depending on what they described as strangely revealing video of Mr. McConnell freezing up in public two times lately, mentioned in interviews Thursday and Friday that the episodes captured in actual time most likely pointed to extra severe clinical issues afflicting the longtime Republican chief.

One of the most neurologists, whilst cautioning that they may no longer diagnose the minority chief from afar, mentioned that the letter and different feedback from Mr. McConnell’s place of work perceived to fall wanting explaining why he impulsively stopped talking all the way through information meetings in past due July and once more on Wednesday.

“If I gave that tape to a clinical scholar and that was once his rationalization, I’d fail him,” mentioned Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a professor of neurology on the NYU Grossman College of Medication, relating to the account given by means of the attending doctor of Congress on Thursday. “Medically, those episodes want to be taken severely.”

The neurologists mentioned that the episodes justified shut clinical consideration and may just steered remedy to stay them from habitual. Whilst a number of probabilities had been urged, together with mini-strokes, medical doctors mentioned that the spells seemed maximum in line with focal seizures, that are electric surges in a single area of the mind.

The senator’s aides have no longer printed what form of follow-up care Mr. McConnell is also receiving. Doug Andres, a spokesman for the senator, mentioned on Friday he had not anything so as to add past the letter by means of the Congressional doctor, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, who didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Extra information about the clinical historical past of Mr. McConnell, 81, together with whether or not he has been having such episodes off digicam, would additionally assist rule out different imaginable explanations for the spells, neurologists mentioned.

Whether or not brought about by means of seizures or mini-strokes or one thing else, spells like Mr. McConnell’s would no longer preclude maximum sufferers from running or socializing usually, medical doctors mentioned.

“Seizures have a stigma in our society, and that’s unlucky as a result of those are very transient electric interruptions in conduct,” mentioned Dr. Jeffrey Saver, a professor of neurology at U.C.L.A. “Between the ones uncommon episodes, that are typically neatly managed with medications, folks serve as completely usually.”

Nonetheless, professionals mentioned that seizures carried some increased possibility of cognitive or behavioral issues and may just have an effect on older sufferers otherwise.

Hardly ever does the general public get as whole a glimpse of a significant clinical match in a public determine because it did two times in fresh weeks with Mr. McConnell. For neurologists, movies like the ones appearing Mr. McConnell from the instant he perceived to lose the power to talk are excess of mere curiosities.

They are able to assist shape the root of a prognosis, as selfmade movies of on a regular basis sufferers sometimes do in same old neurology practices.

“They’re very useful, since you’re no longer matter to the vagaries of somebody’s description and you’ll be able to seize the start of it, which is necessary particularly for seizures,” mentioned Dr. Anthony Kim, a professor of neurology on the College of California, San Francisco.

Main points as small because the path during which folks’s eyes are pointed all the way through such an episode be offering attainable clues in regards to the reason, Dr. Kim mentioned.

After gazing Mr. McConnell’s signs play out — his abrupt prevent in speech, his eyes fastened within the distance, his seeming restoration after about 30 seconds — Dr. Kim mentioned that “the likelihood on the best of my checklist can be a seizure.”

That Mr. McConnell’s 2nd spell so carefully reflected the primary pointed much more strongly to a seizure, neurologists mentioned.

Mini-strokes, which consequence from a clot that reduces blood glide to the mind, too can reason transient classes of impaired speech. However they infrequently produce the similar constellation of signs each and every time they recur, for the reason that clots are not likely to go back and forth at random to the similar a part of the mind two times.

Focal seizures, then again, are regularly brought about by means of an irregularity in a single particular a part of the mind, developing what medical doctors seek advice from as stereotypic signs. They’re recognized to forestall sufferers useless of their tracks, seeming to chop them off from their environment.

Sufferers can regularly reply reflexively to questions all the way through such an episode — as Mr. McConnell did on Wednesday, announcing “yeah” when requested if he had heard a reporter’s query — even supposing they seem not able to voice their ideas or interact with their surroundings.

Mr. McConnell suffered a concussion in March, a possibility issue for seizures. The seizures will also be brought about by means of a bleed within the mind or a scar from a annoying head damage. Earlier strokes or different sorts of injury to mind tissue too can result in seizures in older folks, who as a bunch enjoy the onset of seizures nearly as regularly as kids do.

Some seizures are provoked by means of triggers like odd blood sugar ranges. But when somebody has had two seizures that can’t be defined in that method, neurologists mentioned that might in most cases be sufficient for a prognosis of epilepsy, a not unusual neurological dysfunction affecting greater than 3 million American citizens that may stand up at any age. They’d typically prescribe anti-seizure drugs.

“Two seizures you indisputably would need to deal with,” mentioned Dr. Sami Khella, the manager of neurology at Penn Presbyterian Clinical Middle. “You don’t need them to occur — they’re no longer just right for you.”

Many sufferers serve as totally usually and display standard mind wave task between seizures, permitting them to stay lively and dealing whilst some would possibly finally end up forgoing actions like using.

However they do reason sufferers to pass over classes of time all the way through episodes. A seizure at an inopportune second, like when crossing the road, will also be bad. And focal seizures involving one area of the mind can generalize, inflicting episodes characterised by means of jerking actions or epileptic spasms.

Past that, one or two seizures can beget extra, a cycle that neurologists attempt to interrupt with remedy. “The extra the mind seizes, the extra it learns to clutch,” Dr. Khella mentioned.

Different headaches can stick with. A phenomenon referred to as surprising, sudden dying in epilepsy kills an estimated one in 1,000 folks with epilepsy each and every 12 months.

“When you do get epilepsy as an aged person, there are considerations about such things as reminiscence, about cognitive serve as, as a result of your resilience at 80 goes to be some distance not up to whilst you’re 20 or 30,” mentioned Dr. Devinsky, who directs NYU Langone’s Complete Epilepsy Middle.

Neurologists mentioned they may no longer rule out different imaginable explanations for Mr. McConnell’s episodes.

Dr. Gavin Britz, a neurosurgeon at Houston Methodist, mentioned he would need to exclude Parkinson’s illness, which will additionally reason freezing episodes.

However neurologists agreed that ideas that Mr. McConnell was once simply lightheaded, whilst imaginable, had been tricky to sq. with the video. Dehydration may just exacerbate different prerequisites, they mentioned, however such sufferers can be not likely to stick upright or get well so temporarily with out fluids, as Mr. McConnell perceived to do.

“We don’t have 100% knowledge, so we’re more or less at nighttime,” Dr. Devinsky mentioned. “However we do have this very robust scientific knowledge, which is rather truthfully how I’ve to diagnose seizures and epilepsy at all times, regularly with out the video.”