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tHE icna WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT ! Donald Gilbert, Cincinnati, USA Chrysanthy Ikonomidou, Wisconsin, USA Adam Kirton, Calgary, Canada Katherine Mathews, Iowa City, USA Radha Giridharan, New York, USA Marcio Sotero de Menezes, Washington, USA Donna Ferriero, USA Taeun Chang, Washington, USA Janet Soul, Boston Children's Hospital Soe Mar, St Louis, USA Harry Chugani, Detroit, USA Anonymous, New York, USA Robert Cerciello, Connecticut, USA Jonathan Mink, Rochester, USA Nina Schor, Rochester, USA Mark...

12th Conference of the Baltic Child Neurology Association May 30 - June 1, 2013 Kaunas, Lithuania The BCNA 2013 Organizers are excited to begin new year with great news. The 12th Conference of Baltic Child Neurology Association Preliminary Program has been announced! Please find the BCNA 2013 Preliminary Program by clicking the link HERE. Important Dates! The BCNA 2013 Secretariat would like to remind you the important dates and deadlines worth underlining in your 2013 calendar: 1 April, 2013 - Early Registration deadline Please...

New research findings published in Epilepsia, indicate that having a strong family history of seizure disorders increases the chance of having migraine with aura (MA). Migraine and epilepsy often co-occur in patients. Previous studies have found that people with epilepsy are substantially more likely than the general population to have migraine headache. However, it has not been clear whether that comorbidity results from a shared genetic cause. The study led by Dr. Melodie Winawer from Columbia University Medical Center in New York  is the first to confirm a shared genetic susceptibility to epilepsy and migraine...

The Autumn-Winter 2012 issue of the ICNA newsletter is now available to view online or to download as a PDF document. This is the first issue since the 2012 12th ICNC in Brisbane, which was a phenomenal success. See the report from the team later. The AGM held at this meeting voted in favour of a trial of free membership. The effects on the membership numbers are reported in the various officer updates. This brave “experiment” appears to have succeeded in achieving the challenge to expand the membership and to promote the ICNA in its...

Robert Ouvrier was born on 17 May, 1940 to parents whose families had migrated to Australia in the early 19th Century. His father had been among the Australian soldiers who served with considerable distinction in combat at the Franco-Belgian front during the First World War. Not long after Robert’s birth his father was called up to serve in the Second World War as well. Robert distinguished himself throughout his pre-collegiate education. A keen reader and student of languages, he graduated with Honors in Latin and French. His B. Sc in Medicine with...

Preliminary results from the FEBSTAT study has revealed that within days of a prolonged fever-related seizure, some children have signs of acute brain injury, abnormal brain anatomy, altered brain activity, or a combination.Febrile Seizures affect 3 to 4 percent of all children. Most such children recover rapidly and do not suffer long-term health consequences. However, having one or more prolonged febrile seizures in childhood is known to increase the risk of subsequent epilepsy which is estimated to be about 30-40 percent following febrile status epilepticus (FSE). The Consequences of Prolonged Febrile Seizures in Childhood (FEBSTAT) study...

Prof Dimitri Kullmann's team from University College London (UCL) writing in the November 2012 issue of Science Translational Medicine,reports the potential efficacy of gene therapy in focal neocortical epilepsy using a rodent model. The authors created a rat model of focal neocortical epilepsy where they induced epilepsy by injecting tetanus toxin into the rat motor cortex. In this model the animals show motor seizures and epileptic activity similar to Epilepsia Partialis Continua. They then injected a lentiviral vector carrying the gene NpHR which encodes for the light-activated chloride ion pump halorhodopsin along...

In The Lancet, David Neal Franz and colleagues from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report on an international, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial of the efficacy of the mTORC1 inhibitor everolimus in patients with subependymal giant cell astrocytomas associated with tuberous sclerosis complex. Everolimus is a rapamycin analogue with improved bioavailability compared with sirolimus.  This study is the latest to to show the effectiveness of everolimus in slowing the cell growth that is overactive in patients with TSC. The phase III study was conducted among 117 patients with TSC who were randomly assigned...

An evidence-based update to the 2004 guidelines for the treatment of infantile spasms has recently been published. Important new recommendations include use of low-dose adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) over high-dose ACTH or vigabatrin. A paucity of data, however, leaves several key questions unanswered

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