Journal Watch

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is a prevalent neurological disorder resulting in disruptive seizures. In the case of drug resistant epilepsy resective surgery is often considered. This is a procedure hampered by unpredictable success rates, with many patients continuing to have seizures even after surgery.

Migraines can be triggered by a variety of factors, including stress, sleep disruption, noise, odors, and diet. The recent discovery that the TRPA1 ion channel transduces oxidative stress and triggers neurogenic inflammation suggests that oxidative stress may be the common denominator underlying migraine triggers. The findings of a new Headache review indicate that many of these factors converge on a common pathway involving oxidative stress.

In a study published online in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine, researchers from the Departments of Emergency Medicine at Orlando Regional Medical, Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children ,Orlando, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia examined the performance of serum glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in detecting traumatic intracranial lesions on computed tomography (CT) scan in children and youth with mild and moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) and assessed its performance in trauma control patients without head trauma.

In a study published online in Annals of Neurology, researchers from the University of South Australia in Adelaide have identified mutations in GATOR1 complex as the most significant cause of familial focal epilepsy identified to date.

A retrospective study on 71 children with refractory epilepsy looking at the effect of concomitant AED use on the efficacy of the ketogenic diet (KD), has suggested that Lamotrigine used alongside significantly reduced the efficacy of the diet (van der LouW et al., 2015). The study was performed by van der LouW and colleagues at Erasmus University Hospital Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam and published in the journal Seizure on 21 September 2015. The study included children aged 0-18 yrs. who were started on KD between 2008-2014 and were on the diet for at least 3 months...

In a long term retrospective study on children with refractory Childhood Absence Epilepsy (CAE), published in EJPN, Franzoni and colleagues (Franzoni et al., 2015) report a higher incidence of cognitive impairment in children with longer duration of childhood absence epilepsy indicating the not so benign nature of this condition.

PURPOSE:To analyze the adverse events (AEs) significantly associated with levetiracetam (LEV) therapy through a meta-analysis of all available double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled trials (RCTs), performed in any age, gender, ethnic background and disease. General tolerability and study withdrawals due to AEs associated with LEV treatment were also investigated. In addition, a dose-effect responses relationship for all variables was assessed. METHODS:RCTs were identified searching Medline (PubMed), Embase and Cochrane CENTRAL for the words "Levetiracetam" and "randomized controlled trial", with different search strategies, setting the limits "humans" and "English". Very common and common AEs according to the summary of...

Epilepsies originating from the posterior cortex, namely the parieto-occipital lobes and the occipital border of the temporal lobe, account for the minority of focal epilepsies (Boesebeck et al., 2002), therefore, epilepsy surgery in the posterior cortex has been less extensively examined in the literature, relative to that for temporal or frontal lobe epilepsies. Most studies emphasize the difficulty in delineating the precise localisation of a posterior epileptogenic zone (EZ: the site of origin and of primary propagation of ictal discharges; Bancaud et al., 1970; Kahane et al., 2006) because of rather non-specific clinical seizure patterns (Bancaud,...

The Personal View is published on the 40th anniversary of the Glasgow Coma Scale's introduction in a 1974 Lancet article*. Since this seminal publication, the Glasgow Coma Scale has provided a practical method for bedside assessment of impairment of conscious level, the clinical hallmark of acute brain injury. The paper's lead author is Professor Graham Teasdale, of the University of Glasgow, UK, one of the authors of the original paper introducing the scale. Professor Teasdale and colleagues examine the extent to which the original aspirations of the authors have been fulfilled, address some myths and misapprehensions about the scale,...

BACKGROUND: Anti-N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antibody encephalitis is becoming an increasingly recognized cause of encephalopathy in cases previously presumed to be viral encephalitis. Various manifestations of this disease include altered mental status, behavioral changes, seizures, and movement disorders. We have noted three distinct subtypes of this disease which appear to have differential responses to immunotherapies and differences in prognosis.