Childhood epilepsy not linked with later psychiatric disorders

For decades, experts have been studying potential links between childhood epilepsy and various behavioral and psychiatric conditions and some have hypothesized that that they are part of a larger spectrum of brain disorders with shared mechanisms.

However, a new study of young adults has found no substantial or lasting association between childhood epilepsy and psychiatric disorders and suicidal behavior. The study included 257 young adults with childhood-onset epilepsy who were followed since the onset of their epilepsy approximately 15 years earlier and 134 sibling controls.

"To our knowledge, this is the first community-based study of childhood-onset epilepsy in which lifetime and current psychiatric disorders were assessed once children reached young adulthood," said Dr. Anne Berg, senior author of the Epilepsia study.