The six projects selected will be seeded with more than $100,000 in total to help the scientists generate preliminary investigative results to prepare applications for competitive federal and foundation awards.
A new study reveals how memory and abnormal brain activity are linked in patients with epilepsy who often report problems with memory. The data show that abnormal electrical pulses from specific brain cells in these patients are associated with a temporary kind of memory disruption called transient cognitive impairment.
Researchers report cases of five epilepsy patients who found better treatments for deleterious neuropsychiatric symptoms like anxiety and depression using data collected — while the patients were at home — from implanted neurostimulators placed in their brains to control their epileptic seizures.
A researcher at Rice University's Brown School of Engineering and an alumna of her lab have the first validation of their program to assess the risk of seizures in patients with epilepsy.
A new clinical trial in the emergency department finds no difference in efficacy or adverse effects of three commonly used treatments for patients with refractory status epilepticus.
Imagine not being able to drive, shower alone or even work because you are never quite sure when the next seizure will leave you incapacitated. Hope may be on the horizon for epilepsy patients who have had limited success with seizure drugs. In a study, led by a Johns Hopkins lead investigator, of 437 patients across 107 institutions in 16 countries, researchers found that the investigational drug cenobamate reduced seizures 55% on the two highest doses of this medication that were tested over the entire treatment period.
The five-year award will support the NINDS Human Genetics Resource Center, a collection of biological samples and corresponding demographic, clinical, and genetic data made available to qualified researchers around the world. This repository includes samples from subjects with various diseases – such as cerebrovascular disease, dystonia, epilepsy, motor neuron disease, parkinsonism, and Tourette Syndrome.
With a little time, some information and a few questions, neurologists can help women with epilepsy make choices about birth control, folic acid supplements, and pregnancy.
Keck Medicine of USC announces the launch of the USC Epilepsy Care Consortium, a unique partnership of six independent epilepsy centers serving patients in Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Central Valley.
About 600,000 women with epilepsy become pregnant each year. Careful management of anti-seizure medications can reduce risks to both mother and baby.
In Mozambique, most people with epilepsy don’t seek treatment. So the country took on an intimidating challenge: Diagnose and treat more people by increasing awareness, reducing stigma, improving medication access, and partnering with traditional healers.
In work that could someday improve treatments for epilepsy, UT Southwestern scientists have published the first three-dimensional structure of a member of a large family of human proteins that carry charged particles – ions – across the cell membrane.
When an adult child is diagnosed with epilepsy, their parents face a wide array of social, emotional and financial issues, often with very little support. Striking a balance between caring for their child and allowing independence can be difficult and frustrating.
An international team of researchers led by Cleveland Clinic has developed new genetic-based epilepsy risk scores which may lay the foundation for a more personalized method of epilepsy diagnosis and treatment.
In some forms of epilepsy, the function of certain "brake cells" in the brain is presumed to be disrupted.
By studying the brain dynamics of 28 subjects with epilepsy, scientists demonstrated there is no evidence for a previously suspected warning sign for seizures known as “critical slowing down,” which refers to characteristic changes in the behavior of a complex system that approaches a theoretical tipping point; when this point is exceeded, there can be impactful and devastating changes. The researchers discuss their work in this week’s Chaos.
Any neurologist who sees patients with epilepsy also sees patients with undiagnosed depression. A simple screening tool can improve outcomes and save lives.
Epilepsy affects entire families, with impacts on caregivers' physical health, emotional functioning, social relationships, employment and finances. Caregivers and siblings are at risk for post-traumatic stress. Here's how one family works to channel their stress and frustration into helping others.
Being a parent or sibling of someone with epilepsy is life changing. Family members share their stories.
Epilepsy affects entire families. Research shows that uncontrolled seizures can lead to the development of PTSD in caregivers and siblings. Family members also may struggle with anxiety and depression, as well as guilt and fear.
It might seem that there’s no downside to successful epilepsy surgery. Who wouldn’t want to be free of seizures that limit their life? But there are challenges to seizure freedom after years of living with epilepsy. The “burden of normality” can disrupt a person’s life and their relationships.
Prof. Rafael Malach’s lab has revealed a neuronal mechanism central to free recall. Working with people hospitalized with epilepsy who had implanted electrodes, the team recorded, for the first time, “hippocampal ripples” – synchronized bursts of activity that Prof. Malach calls “a nerve-cell fireworks display.”
Combining seizure-preventing electrical stimulation with repetitive musical tones improves processing of sounds in the brain, according to new research. The discovery may provide relief for chronic ringing in the ears (tinnitus) and aid communication skills in people with autism. The first-of-its-kind study, published ahead of print in the Journal of Neurophysiology (JNP), was chosen as an APSselect article for August.
Worldwide, more than 50 million people are living with epilepsy. As many as 37 million are not receiving treatment, though it can cost as little as US$5 a year and eliminates seizures about two-thirds of the time. These findings and many others are published in "Epilepsy: A public health imperative", a report produced by ILAE, the World Health Organization and the International Bureau for Epilepsy.
The first surgery in New Jersey using the ROSA Brain robot was performed by Ronald Benitez, MD, chief of endovascular neurosurgery, Overlook Medical Center. Conventional brain surgery for epilepsy requires a craniotomy. Using ROSA Brain, surgeons make tiny holes in the skull through which they insert electrodes to record brain activity and help pinpoint exactly which part of the brain is responsible for seizures. The robot can also assist in deep brain stimulation, trans-nasal and ventricular endoscopy, and brain biopsies.
A team of scientists have designed and tested in mice a novel and promising therapeutic strategy for treating Lafora Disease (LD), a fatal form of childhood epilepsy. This new type of drug is a first-in-class therapy for LD and an example of precision medicine that has potential for treating other types of aggregate-based neurological diseases.
SUDEP occurs in about 1-2 per 1,000 patients with chronic epilepsy and 3-9 per 1,000 in those with severe, refractory seizures, though its frequency is difficult to calculate. It is most common in patients 20 to 40 years old.
Herbs, including cilantro, have a long history of use as folk medicine anticonvulsants. Until now, many of the underlying mechanisms of how the herbs worked remained unknown. In a new study, researchers uncovered the molecular action that enables cilantro to effectively delay certain seizures common in epilepsy and other diseases.
The males of one species of butterfly are more attracted to females that are active, not necessarily what they look like, according to a recent research conducted at Augustana University.The paper, “Behaviour before beauty: Signal weighting during mate selection in the butterfly Papilio polytes,” found that males of the species noticed the activity levels of potential female mates, not their markings.
Neurologists report outcomes provided by a specialized neuromodulation clinic for drug-resistant epilepsy during 19 months of operation: improved access for patients, good communication with referring physicians, and achievement of expected outcomes for reducing or eliminating seizures.
People with epilepsy have a rare risk of sudden death. A new study shows that risk may apply even to people whose epilepsy is well-controlled, which is contrary to previous, smaller studies that showed the risk was highest among those with severe, difficult-to-treat epilepsy. The new study is published in the June 19, 2019, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
An increasing number of studies are finding intimate communication between the gut and brain, as well as complex interplay among the gut microbiome, the brain and the rest of the body. But does the gut affect epilepsy? More specifically, can certain populations of bacteria predispose to seizures, and can we harness the power of the microbiome to stop seizures?
En abril, Paraguay celebró su primera Semana de la Epilepsia. El concepto de una semana de epilepsia, que se puso a prueba en Bolivia en 2015, incluye actividades científicas, sociales y culturales para crear conciencia sobre la epilepsia y su importancia como centro de atención de la salud pública.
Paraguay held its first Epilepsy Week in April, with scientific, social and cultural activities to raise awareness of epilepsy and its importance as a focus of public health.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have successfully prevented epileptic seizures in animal models by pre-emptively directing a low-frequency stimulus to the nerve fibers in the brain.
Surgery is the only way to stop seizures in 30 per cent of patients with focal drug-resistant epilepsy. A new study finds that inducing seizures before surgery may be a convenient and cost-effective way to determine the brain region where seizures are coming from.
When Guy Bradley began having episodes of memory loss and confusion, doctors suspected a stroke or dementia. Instead, an EEG showed that the 69-yeard old epilepsy, which is frequently missed in older patients because it's presumed to be a "children's disease."
A new study finds that people who have movement problems, symptoms that cannot be explained by an underlying disease, may have chemical changes in specific areas of the brain. The study is published in the June 5, 2019, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. These symptoms, which include tremors, muscle contractions or problems with walking, are called functional or psychogenic motor symptoms.
Children can keep full visual perception – the ability to process and understand visual information – after brain surgery for severe epilepsy, according to a study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. A new report by Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, researchers from a study of children who had undergone epilepsy surgery suggests that the lasting effects on visual perception can be minimal, even among children who lost tissue in the brain’s visual centers.
Classifying seizures and types of epilepsy is something like creating another language - one that's used by physicians, patients and policymakers. How do these classifications change over time, and why is it sometimes difficult to reach consensus?
Epilepsy surgery that stops seizures is usually considered successful. However, surgical consequences -- such as cognitive issues, depression, and anxiety -- can affect quality of life. And some struggle with the 'burden of normality' that comes from no longer having seizures.
A multicenter trial of minimally invasive laser surgery to treat epileptic seizures reveals approaches for better seizure control with fewer side effects.
A team of researchers discovered a new gene associated with severe childhood epilepsy using a novel computational approach. The team systematically compared phenotypes, or clinical data, of patients with severe childhood epilepsies through a novel analysis strategy and looked for common genetic causes in patients who had similar clinical presentations. This is the first time that such an analysis of clinical data has been used to identify novel genetic causes of neurological disorders, and this new computational method has the potential to help patients with a variety of complex and difficult-to-diagnose conditions.
Successful epilepsy surgery can improve brain connectivity similar to patterns seen in people without epilepsy, according to a new study published in the journal Neurosurgery.
A team of biophysicists has discovered and studied the structure of the KR2 rhodopsin under physiological conditions. This pioneering work breaks ground for a future breakthrough in optogenetics, a highly relevant area of biomedicine with applications in neurological disease treatment and more. The fundamental discovery will lead to a new instrument for efficient therapy of depression, anxiety disorders, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease.
The International League Against Epilepsy's Task Force for Epilepsy Education has developed a roadmap for a competency-based curriculum in epileptology. The curriculum is meant to address educational gaps and strengthen the knowledge of all health professionals who care for people with epilepsy.
Though the success rate of epilepsy surgery can be higher than 80% for certain seizure types, only a small fraction of people with drug-resistant epilepsy are referred for surgical evaluation. A study of 185 people with epilepsy, all seen at clinics in Germany, investigated why this might be.
Taking a pharmaceutical formulation of cannabidiol, a cannabis-based medicine, cut seizures nearly in half for children with a rare and severe type of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome, according to a phase 3 study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 71st Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, May 4 to 10, 2019. Dravet syndrome, which starts in infancy, can lead to intellectual disability and frequent, prolonged seizures. Cannabidiol is derived from marijuana that does not include the psychoactive part of the plant that creates a “high.”
Neuroscientists at Tufts prevented the development of epileptic activity in mice after traumatic brain injury by using a drug that mimics the metabolic effects of the ketogenic diet.
Harvard Medical School, MIT receive $9 million to study neurobiology, physiologic effects of cannabinoids
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right