Medications

Researchers challenge FDA warning on common epilepsy drug

Rutgers Health researchers found that lamotrigine, a widely prescribed antiseizure medication, to be safe in older adults with epilepsy, contrary to a safety warning by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The study has ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Air pollution may increase epilepsy risk

A new study reveals that air pollution may contribute to the development of epilepsy, a brain condition that causes seizures.

Neuroscience

Post-traumatic epilepsy can impact survival

People who develop epilepsy after a traumatic brain injury are at an 80% higher risk of premature death compared to those who have suffered a similar brain injury without developing epilepsy. This has been shown in a new ...

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Epilepsy (from the Ancient Greek ἐπιληψία (epilēpsía) — "seizure") is a common and diverse set of chronic neurological disorders characterized by seizures. Some definitions of epilepsy require that seizures be recurrent and unprovoked, but others require only a single seizure combined with brain alterations which increase the chance of future seizures.

Epileptic seizures result from abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain. About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly 90% of epilepsy occurs in developing countries. Epilepsy becomes more common as people age. Onset of new cases occur most frequently in infants and the elderly. As a consequence of brain surgery, epileptic seizures may occur in recovering patients.

Epilepsy is usually controlled, but not cured, with medication. However, over 30% of people with epilepsy do not have seizure control even with the best available medications. Surgery may be considered in difficult cases. Not all epilepsy syndromes are lifelong – some forms are confined to particular stages of childhood. Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as syndromic with vastly divergent symptoms, all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain and numerous seizures.

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