An international team of scientists led by a University of Leicester researcher has carried out a scientific study into the realm of consciousness.

It was no way for an 11-year-old to live. For a month the boy had endured daily episodes of uncontrollable jerking and foaming at the mouth, and his physicians at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital were concerned that the boy had epilepsy. Before starting the boy on a lifetime of anti-seizure medications, though, they turned to an unconventional diagnostic tool: hypnosis.

A team of researchers in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States has revealed how mitochondrial diseases are passed from the mother to the next generation in a mouse model system.

Scientists have discovered that mice genetically engineered to lack a particular protein in the brain have profound deafness and seizures. The finding suggests a pathway, they say, for exploring the hereditary causes of deafness and epilepsy in humans.

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.

The use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) can lead to decreased fertility and increased incidence of reproductive endocrine disorders in both men and women. A new study published in Epilepsia investigates the effects of withdrawal from two common AEDs, carbamazepine (CBZ) and valproate (VPA), on the sex-hormones of male and female AED users.

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.

New research from the Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne has shown why mutation in a single gene can cause epilepsy in infants.

A history of maternal epilepsy and its associated treatment may be linked to impaired intelligence later in life, says a new study published in Epilepsia. Dr. Nina Oyen, M.D., of the University of Bergen and Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Bergen, Norway, investigated the I.Q. levels of sons born to mothers with and without epilepsy, and found a correlation between intelligence and the illness.