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.

Increasing the amount of SUMO, a small protein in the brain, could be a way of treating diseases such as epilepsy and schizophrenia, reveal scientists at the University of Bristol, UK. Their findings are published online today in Nature.

Data from two clinical trials presented today at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) meeting suggest that an investigational once daily extended release formulation of Lamictal® (lamotrigine) is effective as add-on treatment in patients with partial epilepsy with and without secondary generalization.

In more than a third of women with epilepsy, seizures fluctuate across the menstrual cycle, due in part to continually fluctuating effects of estrogen on the neural circuitry in the hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in learning and memory - and in epileptic seizures.