Genetics, Pediatric Epilepsy
Our September issue of Epilepsy Research News highlights research on veterans, an AI algorithm that detects brain abnormalities, seizure risk after Delta and Omicron infection, and more.
This study aimed to evaluate the surgical outcomes and relevant prognostic factors in patients with low-grade epilepsy-associated neuroepithelial tumors (LEAT) and, especially, to develop a scoring system to predict postoperative seizure outcomes.
A literature search was conducted in PubMed and Embase for studies on mechanisms of drug resistance published since 1980. The literature shows neither consensus on the definition nor a widely accepted model to explain drug resistance in IGE or one of its subsyndromes.
Neurelis’s Valtoco® (diazepam nasal spray) CIV is an intermittent rescue therapy that may be used for treating seizure clusters – emergencies when two or more seizures occur within 24 hours, and increase the risk of status epilepticus, emergency room visits and reduced quality of life.
Patients with epilepsy, particularly idiopathic generalized epilepsy and frontal lobe epilepsy, were more likely to have high impulsivity scores, defined by a certain cutoff on the BIS-11, than controls and subjects with TLE. However, mean impulsivity scores did not differ among controls and subjects with IGE and FLE. Dichotomizing BIS-11 scores may be necessary to avoid false negative results in subjects with epilepsy.
A greater psychiatric burden is seen among females compared to males with PNES, especially diagnoses of borderline personality disorder and depression. Higher rates of suicidality and inpatient psychiatric hospitalization may warrant particular consideration in screening and intervention efforts among female Veterans with PNES.
Difficulty identifying feelings, dysregulation of emotions especially nonacceptance, goals, impulse, strategies, and clarity are common in PWE. Anxiety, suicidal ideation, neuroticism, alexithymia, and emotion dysregulation had a negative impact on quality of life. Each of these are important for psychosocial wellbeing of our patients and must be questioned considering their effects on quality of life.
"This study is the first step in understanding how dietary therapies for epilepsy work," says first author Christopher J. Yuskaitis, MD, Ph.D., a neurologist with the Epilepsy Center and Epilepsy Genetics Program at Boston Children's Hospital. "The mechanisms have until now been completely unknown."
A chance to win a trip to NYC to see Hamilton on Broadway, the latest epilepsy research, our 3rd annual Unite to CURE Epilepsy event, back-to-school shopping, and more in the latest CURE Epilepsy Update.
