Epilepsy News From Medical News Today
Epilepsy News From Medical News Today
Latest Health News and Medical News posted throughout the day, every day.
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New Mechanism For Anxiety Disorders Revealed By Mystery Gene
A novel mechanism for anxiety behaviors, including a previously unrecognized inhibitory brain signal, may inspire new strategies for treating psychiatric disorders, University of Chicago researchers report. By testing the controversial role of a gene called Glo1 in anxiety, scientists uncovered a new inhibitory factor in the brain: the metabolic by-product methylglyoxal...
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Anti-Epilepsy Drugs May Cause Cognitive Deficits In Newborns
A brain study in infant rats demonstrates that the anti-epilepsy drug phenobarbital stunts neuronal growth, which could prompt new questions about using the first-line drug to treat epilepsy in human newborns...
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For Patients With Epilepsy, Response To First Drug Treatment May Signal Likelihood Of Future Seizures
How well people with newly diagnosed epilepsy respond to their first drug treatment, may signal the likelihood that they will continue to have uncontrolled seizures according to University of Melbourne Chair of Neurology Professor Patrick Kwan...
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Instant Leap In Human Brain Evolution May Have Been Driven By Extra Gene
A partial, duplicate copy of a gene appears to be responsible for the critical features of the human brain that distinguish us from our closest primate kin...
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Epilepsy And Psychosis Familial Vulnerability
Although the two disorders may seem dissimilar, epilepsy and psychosis are associated. Individuals with epilepsy are more likely to have schizophrenia, and a family history of epilepsy is a risk factor for psychosis. It is not known whether the converse is true, i.e., whether a family history of psychosis is a risk factor for epilepsy...
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New Wristband For Epileptic Seizures Shows Promise
MIT researchers, together with a team from two Boston hospitals, have provided early evidence in this week's issue of Neurology, that a simple, unobtrusive wrist sensor can measure the severity of epileptic seizures as accurately as electroencephalograms (EEGs) yet without requiring scalp electrodes and electrical leads...
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Clues To Reversing Cognitive Deficits In Humans Offered By Mouse Study
The ability to navigate using spatial cues was impaired in mice whose brains were minus a channel that delivers potassium - a finding that may have implications for humans with damage to the hippocampus, a brain structure critical to memory and learning, according to a Baylor University researcher...
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Wrist Sensors For Epilepsy Could Alert Patients That They Need To Seek Medical Care
In this week's issue of the journal Neurology, researchers at MIT and two Boston hospitals provide early evidence that a simple, unobtrusive wrist sensor could gauge the severity of epileptic seizures as accurately as electroencephalograms (EEGs) do - but without the ungainly scalp electrodes and electrical leads...
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Learning Mechanism Of The Adult Brain Revealed
They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Fortunately, this is not always true. Researchers at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN-KNAW) have now discovered how the adult brain can adapt to new situations. The Dutch researchers' findings are published in the prestigious journal Neuron...
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Mechanism May Aid Treatment For Alzheimer's And Neurological Disorders Associated With Gamma-Wave Alterations And Cognitive Impairments
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have unraveled a process by which depletion of a specific protein in the brain contributes to the memory problems associated with Alzheimer's disease...
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More Research Needed Into The Fetal Effects Of Some Drugs During Pregnancy
Prescription drug use during pregnancy is prevalent, however, not enough is known about the adverse effects they may have on the developing fetus, concludes a new review published in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist. The majority of women take prescriptions for pregnancy-related complaints and minor infections...
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Helping Marijuana Smokers Kick The Habit With The Help Of Anticonvulsant Drug
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found clinical evidence that the drug gabapentin, currently on the market to treat neuropathic pain and epilepsy, helps people to quit smoking marijuana (cannabis). Unlike traditional addiction treatments, gabapentin targets stress systems in the brain that are activated by drug withdrawal...
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Brain Surgery For Epilepsy Underutilized
Ten years ago, a landmark clinical trial in Canada demonstrated the unequivocal effectiveness of brain surgeries for treating uncontrolled epilepsy, but since then the procedure has not been widely adopted - in fact, it is dramatically underutilized according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)...
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Discovery Of Key Protein Responsible For Controlling Nerve Cell Protection Could Lead To New Therapies For Stroke And Epilepsy
A key protein, which may be activated to protect nerve cells from damage during heart failure or epileptic seizure, has been found to regulate the transfer of information between nerve cells in the brain. The discovery, made by neuroscientists at the University of Bristol and published in Nature Neuroscience and PNAS, could lead to novel new therapies for stroke and epilepsy...
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Surgery For Epilepsy Reveals How Selective Hearing Works In The Brain
The longstanding mystery of how selective hearing works - how people can tune in to a single speaker while tuning out their crowded, noisy environs - is solved this week in the journal Nature by two scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)...
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Patients With Frequent, Uncontrollable Seizures Benefit From Perampanel
A new type of anti-epilepsy medication that selectively targets proteins in the brain that control excitability may significantly reduce seizure frequency in people whose recurrent seizures have been resistant to even the latest medications, new Johns Hopkins-led research suggests...
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Epilepsy Type Signs Linked To Stress
A study, published online in the journal Seizure, reveals that over 33% of patients believed to have intractable seizures were actually presenting stress-triggered symptoms...
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Epileptic Brain Size Disorder Caused By 'Brain-Only' Mutation
Scientists have discovered a mutation limited to brain tissue that causes hemimegalencephaly (HMG), a condition where one half of the brain is enlarged and dysfunctional, leading to intellectual disability and severe epilepsy...
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Misdiagnosis Possible Due To Symptoms Linked To Stress, Poor Coping Skills, That Mimic Epilepsy
Based on their clinical experience and observations, a team of Johns Hopkins physicians and psychologists say that more than one-third of the patients admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital's inpatient epilepsy monitoring unit for treatment of intractable seizures have been discovered to have stress-triggered symptoms rather than a true seizure disorder...
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Brain Implants For Epileptic Seizures: New Early Warning System Could Lead To Fewer False Alarms
Epilepsy affects 50 million people worldwide, but in a third of these cases, medication cannot keep seizures from occurring. One solution is to shoot a short pulse of electricity to the brain to stamp out the seizure just as it begins to erupt. But brain implants designed to do this have run into a stubborn problem: too many false alarms, triggering unneeded treatment...
