Lucy Murphy, 9, eats a very fatty diet to reduce her epileptic seizures.

Epilepsy is a common medical condition characterized by convulsions and short periods of confusion. It affects more than 50 million people worldwide. But intractable epilepsy, which affects more than 1 million Americans and is often resistant to drug treatment and surgery, is arguably worse.

Early diagnosis and treatment that quickly achieves seizure freedom with nominal side effects is the key goal to epilepsy management. Three studies highlighted at the AES annual meeting address this goal from different vantage points:

Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientists have identified what may be the first known common denominator underlying inherited and sporadic epilepsy - a disruption in an ion channel called the BK channel.

Using a rodent model of epilepsy, researchers found one of the body’s own neurotransmitters released during seizures, glutamate, turns on a signaling pathway in the brain that increases production of a protein that could reduce medication entry into the brain.

The brain of individuals who suffer from epilepsy is characterized by astrogliosis, a brain pathology evidenced by a complex series of changes in the morphology and function of brain cells known as astrocytes.

Not all individuals who have epilepsy respond to traditional treatments and these individuals are said to have medically refractory epilepsy.

Yale School of Medicine researchers have shown for the first time that it is possible to suppress the development of epilepsy in genetically predisposed animals—which could open the door to treating epilepsy as a preventable disease.

Inheriting two genetic mutations that can individually cause epilepsy might actually be “seizure-protective,” said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in a report that appears online today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

For the first time, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are able to pinpoint brain waves that distinguish true from false memories, providing a better understanding of how memory works and creating a new strategy to help epilepsy patients retain cognitive function.

An implanted stimulator being studied at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital may be able to predict and prevent seizures before they start in people with uncontrolled epilepsy.

An article published July 16, 2007, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides strong evidence for a novel type of communication between nerve cells in the brain. The findings may have relevance for the prevention and treatment of epilepsy, and possibly in the exploration of other aspects of brain functions, from creative thought processes to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.