Epilepsy is a heterogeneous collection of neurological conditions and syndromes characterized by recurrent, unprovoked, paroxysmal seizure activity. It is estimated that 10.5 million children under 15 years have active epilepsy, representing about 25% of the global epilepsy population. Of the 3.5 million people who develop epilepsy annually, 40%…

Learning and memory dysfunction is the most common neuropsychological effect of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, and because the underlying neurobiology is poorly understood, there are no pharmacological strategies to help restore memory function in these patients. We have demonstrated impairments in the acquisition of an allocentric spatial task,…

Given the grave morbidity and mortality of drug-resistant epilepsy, it is of great clinical interest to determine how often prior proven drug-resistant epilepsy is reversible without surgery and whether remission can be predicted by clinical features in children with incident drug-resistant epilepsy. We determined the likelihood of 1-, 2- and…

We present two phenotypically similar females with Xp duplication who have autism and epilepsy. Case 1 is a 14-year-old Honduran female with autism and medically refractory complex partial, secondarily generalized epilepsy. Case 2 is a 3-year-old Austrian female with autism and medically refractory complex partial epilepsy. Both patients also…

The hippocampal dentate gyrus maintains its capacity to generate new neurons throughout life. In animal models, hippocampal neurogenesis is increased by cognitive tasks, and experimental ablation of neurogenesis disrupts specific modalities of learning and memory. In humans, the impact of neurogenesis on cognition remains unclear. Here, we…

We report the case of a 39-year-old, temporal lobe epileptic male, MH. Prior to complex partial seizure, experienced up to three times a day, MH often experiences an aura experienced as a persistent sensation of deja vu. Data-driven theories of deja vu formation suggest that partial familiarity for the perceived stimulus is responsible for the…

Since prediction of long-term seizure outcome using preoperative diagnostic modalities remains suboptimal in epilepsy surgery, we evaluated whether interictal spike frequency measures obtained from extraoperative subdural electrocorticography (ECoG) recording could predict long-term seizure outcome. This study included 61 young patients (age…

Neural networks for processing language often are reorganized in patients with epilepsy. However, the extent and location of within and between hemisphere re-organization are not established. We studied 45 patients, all with a left hemisphere seizure focus (mean age 22.8, seizure onset 13.3), and 19 normal controls (mean age 24.8) with an fMRI…

We have studied a family with severe mental retardation characterized by the virtual absence of speech, autism spectrum disorder, epilepsy, late-onset ataxia, weakness and dystonia. Post-mortem examination of two males revealed widespread neuronal loss, with the most striking finding being neuronal and glial tau deposition in a pattern reminiscent…

Recent studies have suggested that cortical gamma-oscillations are tightly linked with various forms of physiological activity. In the present study, the dynamic changes of intracranially recorded median-nerve somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) and somatosensory-induced gamma-oscillations were animated on a three-dimensional MR image, and the…

The epidemiology of lesions identified by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), along with the use of pre-surgical evaluations and surgery in childhood-onset epilepsy patients has not previously been described. In a prospectively identified community-based cohort of children enrolled from 1993 to 1997, we examined (i) the frequency of lesions…

The functional changes that occur throughout the human brain after the selective removal of an epileptogenic lesion remain unclear. Subtemporal selective amygdalohippocampectomy (SAH) has been advocated as a minimally invasive surgical procedure for patients with medically intractable mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). We evaluated the effects…

Patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy from hippocampal origin and patients with unilateral surgical excision of an epileptic focus located in the medial temporal lobe were compared to healthy controls on a version of the Autobiographical Interview (AI) adapted to assess memory for event-specific and generic personal episodes. For both…

Patterns of responses in the cerebral cortex can vary, and are influenced by pre-existing cortical function, but it is not known how rapidly these variations can occur in humans. We investigated how rapidly response patterns to electrical stimulation can vary in intact human brain. We also investigated whether the type of functional change…

Aim: Worster-Drought syndrome (WDS), or congenital suprabulbar paresis, is a permanent movement disorder of the bulbar muscles causing persistent difficulties with swallowing, feeding, speech, and saliva control owing to a non-progressive disturbance in early brain development. As such, it falls within the cerebral palsies. The aim of this study…