Brain activity has been compared to a light bulb turning on in the head. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have reversed this notion, creating a drug that stops brain activity when a light shines on it.
Treatment with low doses of levetiracetam, the active ingredient in the drug Keppra, appears to be effective by itself for controlling newly diagnosed epilepsy, new research indicates.
Reduced bone mineral density and subsequent increased risk of fractures is documented in patients taking enzyme-inducing antiepileptic medicines such as phenytoin, phenobarbitone, and primidone long-term.
Some epilepsy patients can reliably predict when they are likely to have a seizure, a finding that may lead to better seizure prevention, according to a study published in the Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Epilepsy specialists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are testing an investigational device designed to control seizures in patients with epilepsy. The device is a responsive neurostimulator (RNS? System) which is implanted in the brain, detects abnormal electrical activity in the brain and sends out electrical impulses to prevent seizures. Wake Forest Baptist is the only center in North Carolina, Tennessee and South Carolina to test the device made by NeuroPace.
For the first time, researchers have inhibited the development of epilepsy after a brain insult in animals. By using gene therapy to modify signaling pathways in the brain, neurology researchers found that they could significantly reduce the development of epileptic seizures in rats.
Teenagers who have epilepsy often face a double whammy because along with the seizure disorder, they’re much more prone to depression and other psychiatric problems.
Bipolar symptoms appear to be more prevalent among people with epilepsy than among those with other chronic medical conditions, new research indicates.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers are developing a tiny, highly efficient heat spreader to be used in a new device to be implanted in the brain of patients who suffer from severe epileptic seizures.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new use for TOPAMAX (topiramate) Tablets and TOPAMAX (topiramate capsules) Sprinkle Capsules as initial monotherapy in patients 10 years of age and older with partial-onset or primary generalized tonic-clonic seizures.