Memory deficits significantly decrease an individual's quality of life and are a pervasive comorbidity of epilepsy. Despite the various distinct processes of memory, the majority of epilepsy research has focused on seizures during the encoding phase of memory, therefore the effects of a seizure on other memory processes is relatively unknown. In…

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,…

Many idiopathic epilepsy syndromes have a characteristic age dependence, the underlying molecular mechanisms of which are largely unknown. Here we propose a mechanism that can explain that epileptic spells in benign familial neonatal-infantile seizures occur almost exclusively during the first days to months of life. Benign familial…

One of the most common and serious co-morbidities in patients with epilepsy is cognitive impairment. While early-life seizures are considered a major cause for cognitive impairment, it is not known whether it is the seizures, the underlying neurological substrate or a combination that has the largest impact on eventual learning and memory. Teasing…

This article presents an introduction to "The Behavior-Analytic Origins of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy: An Example of Behavioral Neurorehabilitation," by Edward Taub and his colleagues (Taub, 2012). Based on extensive experimentation with animal models of peripheral nerve injury, Taub and colleagues have created an approach to overcoming…

Epilepsy, a chronic neurological seizure disorder, affects 2.7 million Americans, half of them children, and worldwide, it is the most common brain disorder. While there is not a cure for epilepsy, the goal of treatment is to achieve the greatest freedom from seizures that can be attained with the minimal amount of side effects. These days…

Background: Tuberous sclerosis (TSC) is a multi-system disorder caused by heterozygous mutations in the "TSC1" or "TSC2" gene and is often associated with neuropsychiatric symptoms, including intellectual disability, specific neuropsychological deficits, autism, other behavioural disorders and epilepsy. Method: Here, we review evidence from animal…

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is often accompanied by interictal behavioral abnormalities, such as fear and memory impairment. To identify possible underlying substrates, we analyzed long-term synaptic plasticity in two relevant brain regions, the lateral amygdala (LA) and the CA1 region of the hippocampus, in the kindling model of epilepsy. Wistar…

Recurring seizures in infants and children are often associated with cognitive deficits, but the reason for the learning difficulties is unclear. Recent studies in several animal models suggest that seizures themselves may contribute in important ways to these deficits. Other studies in animals have shown that recurring seizures result in…

Children who have status epilepticus have continuous or rapidly repeating seizures that may be life-threatening and may cause life-long changes in brain and behavior. The extent to which status epilepticus causes deficits in auditory discrimination is unknown. A naturalistic auditory location discrimination method was used to evaluate this…

Neural generators related to different sleep components have different effects on seizure discharge. These sleep-related systems can provoke seizure discharge propagation during nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and can suppress propagation during REM sleep. Experimental manipulations of discrete physiological components were conducted in feline…

Both clinical and laboratory studies demonstrate that seizures early in life can result in permanent behavioral abnormalities and enhance epileptogenicity. Understanding the critical periods of vulnerability of the developing nervous system to seizure-induced changes may provide insights into parallel or divergent processes in the development of…