Feature Channels: Epilepsy

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Harvard Medical School, MIT receive $9 million to study neurobiology, physiologic effects of cannabinoids

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Reactive neurostimulation reduces seizure frequency by remodeling the brain, and early electrical signatures of this process could be used to accelerate and personalize treatment.

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Deep brain stimulation uses electrical current to stop seizures. Alabama's first patient, only the 27th nationwide, received the implant in Feb. at UAB.

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It’s just after Valentine’s Day, 2016. Audrey Bart, age 41, is rushed to an emergency room in Cape Town, South Africa, for unexplained paralysis. Over the next week, she begins having seizures. A logical conclusion might be that Audrey has epilepsy. But that's not what's going on.

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The University of Sfax Master’s program in epileptology has educated hundreds of physicians from Tunisia and a handful of other countries, combining e-learning with hands-on training.

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Nina Pye was a college student in the United Kingdom when she began collapsing. After months of tests and frustration, she learned she had psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. That wasn't the end of the story; it was only the beginning.

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At 13 years old, Franci van den Berg was already a driven student and athlete in South Africa. She attended elite schools and pushed herself to succeed. A few weeks after starting high school, Franci began having panic-like attacks. She was diagnosed with anxiety and prescribed medication. A few months later, her cousin was killed by a drunk driver. It all went downhill from there.

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Franci van den Berg and Nina Pye live 13,500 kilometers apart: one at the southern tip of Africa, the other in London. Both young women have spent years grappling with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) and their physical, psychological, emotional and social consequences.

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While the prevalence of epilepsy has not changed over the past 25 years, lower-income countries are still saddled with a large treatment gap that results in higher levels of death and disability. The conclusions are part of a rigorous global analysis published in the February 14 issue of Lancet Neurology.

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With the aid of $2.5 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Vanderbilt researchers are on a quest to develop early biomarkers of treatment outcomes for patients with temporal lobe epilepsy based on their individual brain networks.

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A minimally invasive procedure to determine whether patients with drug-resistant epilepsy are candidates for brain surgery is safer, more efficient, and leads to better outcomes than the traditional method, according to new research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

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As many as 50% of children with epilepsy and 20% of adults carry an ADHD diagnosis. Package inserts for ADHD medications warn of the drugs’ potential to lower the seizure threshold. However, there are few empirical data on the risk of seizures at therapeutic doses.

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Neurosurgeon Jason Schwalb, M.D., with help from the team at the Henry Ford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, implanted the first complete Deep Brain Stimulation system in Michigan for the treatment of Epilepsy.

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Combine one cup of seizure stigma with two cups of stigma around mental health conditions. Add a teaspoon of scorn, a dash of societal judgment and mix well.

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University of California, Irvine School of Medicine researcher Geoff Abbott, PhD, has been awarded a $2 million Outstanding Investigator Award/Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) R35 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and a $1.7 million R01 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

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Each year, 1 in every 10 people with epilepsy is injured during a seizure, according to a community-based study using registry data from Tasmania.

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Mónica Patricia Molina ha presentado crisis epilépticas desde hace 28 años, muchas de ellas en espacios públicos. Actualmente, a los 42 años, tiene temor de salir de su casa.

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From patent medicines to the discovery of the body's own endocannabinoid system - listen to Raphael Mechoulam as he talks about the history of cannabis research.

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Social anxiety disorder causes excessive fear of judgment or humiliation. A study of people with epilepsy in Colombia found that nearly 30% could have the condition, which may stem from worries about having a seizure in public.

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Marijuana (cannabis) has been used for thousands of years, both recreationally and medicinally. What do we know about its active compounds and how they work in the body, and how is cannabis research affecting epilepsy treatment?

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Experiments by Fralin Biomedical Research Institute scientists show a strong relationship between changes in astrocytes after mild traumatic brain injury and the eventual occurrence of a seizure.

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A genome-wide study of nearly 45,000 people has identified 16 regions of DNA associated with epilepsy. The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Consortium on Complex Epilepsies did the analysis, which is the largest of its kind. It was published in a recent issue of Nature Communications.

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Why do people make high-risk choices -- in casinos, or in aspects of their everyday lives – even when they know the odds are against them?

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A new neurostimulator developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, can listen to and stimulate electric current in the brain at the same time, potentially delivering fine-tuned treatments to patients with diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson's.

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Electroencephalography (EEG) is a key part of epilepsy diagnosis and treatment. Yet many Asian countries have limited access to EEG and a lack of experienced technologists and readers.

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In India, the Community Interventions for Epilepsy (CIFE) trial centers on home-based visits by social health workers. In impoverished areas of the country, as many as 90% of people with epilepsy do not get treatment.

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A new study from biomedical engineer Qi Wang, who is developing innovative ways of selectively activating neural circuitry to enhance perception and cognition, demonstrates a major advance in understanding how the locus coeruleus (LC) modulates information processing in the thalamus. Wang found that activating the LC improves the transmission of information about different features of sensory stimuli from the thalamus to the cerebral cortex, and subsequently perceptual performance in perceptual tasks.

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Surgery can cure epilepsy, but it’s rarely used. In the United States, only about 1% of people with epilepsy will ever be evaluated for surgery, and fewer than that undergo it. At the same time, some centers oversell surgery, offering it to patients without fully explaining the consequences.

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Though Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy have long been considered separate conditions, research is suggesting they could be related in certain ways. ILAE talks with Dr. Andrew Cole, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Epilepsy Service and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

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Eating leafy greens, dark orange and red vegetables and berry fruits, and drinking orange juice may be associated with a lower risk of memory loss over time in men, according to a study published in the November 21, 2018, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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If you have epilepsy, should you stop drinking coffee? ILAE speaks with researcher Astrid Nehlig, who reviewed the latest research at the 2018 European Congress on Epileptology in Vienna.

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — You’ve likely heard it before: Communication with your health care team helps you better manage your illness. David Burkholder, M.D., a Mayo Clinic neurologist, says that’s especially true for patients and their families dealing with a complex disorder like epilepsy.

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Researchers in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine have discovered the molecular basis for therapeutic actions of an African folk medicine used to treat a variety of illnesses and disorders including diabetes, pain, headaches, paralysis and epilepsy.

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Research is starting to connect the dots between Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy. What does the future hold?

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A new study from UT Southwestern quantifies for the first time how quickly these rapid advancements in genomics may benefit patients. Research published in JAMA Pediatrics includes a five-year review of more than 300 epilepsy cases that showed nearly a third of children had a change in diagnosis based on new data.

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Prolonged seizures can cause neurological damage; about 1 in 5 cases is fatal. How is this condition identified and treated, and what new treatment options are on the horizon?

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In an Oregon study, nearly half of people with epilepsy received CT scans or other neuroimaging during a visit to the emergency department. Is imaging overused? When does someone with epilepsy require emergency care?

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The National Institutes of Health have awarded Indiana University $1.55 million to support the creation of myAURA, an easy-to-use web service for epilepsy patients.

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A large international research team has discovered a new genetic cause for a severe, difficult-to-treat childhood epilepsy syndrome. Spontaneous mutations in one gene disrupt the flow of calcium in brain cells, resulting in epileptic overactivity.

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Researchers in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine have discovered the molecular basis for a therapeutic action of an ancient herbal medicine used across Africa to treat various illnesses, including epilepsy.

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People with a particular kind of irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation may experience a faster decline in thinking and memory skills and have a greater risk of dementia than those without atrial fibrillation, according to a study published in the October 10, 2018, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Seizures are more common during the first month of life than at any other time. Yet research on neonatal seizures lags behind. What causes these seizures and how can they be identified and treated successfully?

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Contrary to long-held assumptions, researchers find that some seizures start after a burst from neurons that inhibit brain activity.

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In some East Asian languages, the term for "epilepsy" is related to madness, or to animals. The social costs are high. Could traditional Chinese philosophy be reinterpreted to reduce the stigma of epilepsy?

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Rutgers researchers publish electronic health record assessment that can identify epilepsy patients at risk for obstructive sleep apnea

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Thirty to 40 percent of people with epilepsy — more than 1 million Americans — continue to experience seizures despite taking medication. Experts at the UCLA Seizure Disorder Center at UCLA Health want to change that picture. Their message to people with epilepsy as well as their doctors is simple: Referral to a full-service epilepsy center can help.

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Pediatric epilepsy specialists are rare; children with epilepsy are not. So in 2005, the British Paediatric Neurology Association established a training course for all health care professionals to improve pediatric epilepsy care around the world.

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An easy and inexpensive test could one day allow clinicians to quickly identify epilepsy patients at risk of carbamazepine hypersensitivity. The technology can be customized to other alleles and is applicable to other gene diagnostics, including pathogen detection.

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The latest research, features and announcements in healthcare in the Healthcare News Source

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Researchers have identified a sentinel area of the brain that gives an early warning before clinical seizure manifestations of focal epilepsy, and they can automatically detect that early warning. This offers the possibility of squelching the seizure — before the patient feels any symptoms.