Autism spectrum disorders

Autism risk may rise with in utero exposure to antiseizure meds

The incidence of autism spectrum disorder is higher among children exposed to topiramate in the second half of pregnancy compared with the general population of children without exposure to antiseizure medications in utero, ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Intervention after first seizure may prevent long-term epilepsy

Only a very small percentage of neurons show changes after an epileptic seizure in mice, but these alterations can be permanent and trigger future seizures that can affect the whole brain and lead to impaired cognition, like ...

Neuroscience

How the brain wakes us from daydreams

When we daydream, we must be able to snap back to attention at a moment's notice. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital uncovered how our brains can do things like react to a question when we're daydreaming: firing activity ...

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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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