NEWS
Funding to develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems to help people with health problems drive safely
New partnership hopes to detect and predict health abnormalities in driver Diagnosed with epilepsy at age 23, Megan Gray was told by doctors that she would never be able to drive again. She began relying on family, friends and rideshare companies to get around, but...
How To Help A Pregnant Woman Who’s Having A Seizure
If you witness a pregnant woman having a seizure, the first step is to call 911. Afterwards, do the following until help arrives. Epilepsy is a chronic brain disorder that affects millions of people around the world. The condition is characterized by seizures and can...
Pregnant Women With Epilepsy More Likely to Have Medication Altered Following Seizure
Changes to antiepileptic drug dosing were more frequent among pregnant women than nonpregnant women with epilepsy, according to study findings published in The New England Journal of Medicine. PHOTO: While there were no significant differences in seizure frequency...
Pregnancy Does Not Worsen Seizures Associated With Epilepsy: Study
New research has discovered that with proper medication management, epilepsy seizures do not worsen in pregnancy. New research has provided insight into the impact pregnancy has on epilepsy. Specifically, a recent study published in The New England Journal of...
Seizure Action Plan Awareness Week Scheduled for February 8-14
The inaugural Seizure Action Plan (SAP) Awareness Week will be held February 8 to 15, organized by the Seizure Action Plan Coalition, which is a collaboration of the Dravet Syndrome Foundation, the Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS) Foundation and...
Physicists rewired a simulated human brain: How its rhythms changed and what it means for people with epilepsy
Synchronization is a widespread phenomenon in nature. Examples include fireflies flashing simultaneously, crickets chirping in unison and bird swarms synchronizing their wing flaps. On the day of London's Millennium Bridge opening, many curious citizens came to cross...
Researchers develop proton trap for more precise drug delivery
During a recent study, researchers have developed a proton trap that makes organic electronic ion pumps more precise when delivering drugs. This new finding will help in reducing drug side effects, and in the long term, they might help patients with symptoms of...
Epilepsy or Not?
Blood test may aid differential diagnosis in seizure disorders Four immune response associated proteins -- TRAIL, ICAM-1, MCP-2, and TNF-R1 -- distinguished PNES from epileptic seizures with sensitivity of 82.6% (95% CI 62.9-93.0) and specificity of 91.6% (95% CI...
MRI guidance improves epilepsy treatment surgery
Better than robotic? Using MRI to guide stereotactic laser corpus callosotomy (SLCC) for epilepsy treatment is more effective than using a surgical robot for the procedure, according to a study published January 22 in the Journal of Neurosurgery. The findings suggest...
Epilepsy research focused on astrocytes
During epileptic seizures, a large number of nerve cells in the brain fire excessively and in synchrony. This hyperactivity may lead to uncontrolled shaking of the body and involve periods of loss of consciousness. While about two thirds of patients respond to...
Brain-wave patterns flag sleep differences in dup15q syndrome
Children with dup15q syndrome have telltale patterns of brain activity during sleep and get less non-REM sleep than neurotypical children do, according to new research. These characteristics could serve as biomarkers and targets for treatments, say the researchers,...
Sensory perception, cell signals disrupted in people and mice missing autism gene
People and mice with only one working copy of the autism gene SYNGAP1 have trouble processing sights and sounds, and brain cells from the mice show a signaling imbalance, according to two new unpublished studies. PHOTO:Excitatory drive: The structure of inhibitory...
UCB Announces Launch of Nile AI, Inc., a Digital Health Company Set to Transform the Course of Epilepsy
UCB today announced the launch of Nile AI, Inc., a new independent company created to improve care for people living with epilepsy, their caregivers, and healthcare providers (HCPs). Nile was founded with a clear mission in mind: to make the journey of every epilepsy...
Four of 10 most common epilepsy medications increase risk of baby ‘having physical birth defect if taken while pregnant’
Four of the 10 of the most common epilepsy medications increase the risk of a baby having a physical birth defect when born if they are taken while a woman is pregnant, a government review has found. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which...
The Cat’s Meow
When fourth-year medical student Chevelle Winchester was finishing her psychiatry rotation in Chicago under neurologist and psychiatrist Alan R. Hirsch, MD, she encountered a patient in her late 20s who was experiencing almost daily seizures. "The seizures would last...
A weather station for epileptic seizure
The unpredictability of epileptic seizures is a severe handicap for patients. Scientists have devised a technique that can predict seizure periods from one to several days in advance. A third of epilepsy sufferers are resistant to treatment for this neurological...
How to protect you mental health during this different Holiday Season
During this pandemic the holidays will be very different this year. Nothing will replace being with friends and family during the holidays. Maybe these tips can help you keep your mental health as healthy as possible during the holiday season. 1. Sleep Get your...
New therapy may be better, safer way to rid some kids of seizures
Children with tough-to-treat epilepsy now have another choice to help them live a life free of seizures, a new study suggests. MRI-guided laser interstitial thermal therapy, a minimally invasive procedure for kids who have drug-resistant epilepsy, is successful in...
Teens, Kids with Epilepsy Report Suicidal Thoughts
Latent suicidality may be intertwined with undiagnosed anxiety or depression Depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts may not be recognized in pediatric epilepsy patients and may occur more frequently than previously thought, a single-center study suggested. In a...
Sudden Death in Epilepsy May Be More Common in Children
Registry data show higher mortality rates than previously thought Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) may be more common than thought in infants and children, a population-based study suggested. SUDEP mortality was 0.26/100,000 infants and children in the...
