News

Engineers out of UC Berkeley have developed a new type of neurostimulator which has the ability to stimulate and observe electric current in the brain concurrently. This has the potential to offer fine-tuned treatments to patients living with epilepsy.

The device, named the WAND, has been described as a “pacemaker for the brain,” it monitors the brain’s electrical activity and delivers electrical stimulation if it identifies something wrong.

Women living with frontal lobe epilepsy are more at risk to seizures during pregnancy than pregnant women living with focal or generalised epilepsy, a new study has reported.

Dr. Paula Voinescu, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston stated; "Physicians need to monitor women with focal epilepsy - especially frontal lobe epilepsy - more closely during pregnancy because maintaining seizure control is particularly challenging for them".

A recent study from the University of Illinois has found that people with epilepsy living in areas with high crime rates in Chicago have triple the amount of seizures compared to those living in areas with lower crime rates.

The largest study of its kind, led by international researchers including scientists at RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland), has discovered 11 new genes associated with epilepsy.

The research is published in today’s issue of Nature Communications. It greatly advances knowledge of the underlying biological causes of epilepsy and may inform the development of new treatments for the condition.

A recent study from the Netherlands has tested the effectiveness of Nightwatch, a new seizure detection device. This device is a bracelet which uses factors like heart rate and movement to recognise “major seizures”.

The researchers defined “major seizures” as seizures that were medically urgent. This included tonic-clonic, long generalised tonic and intense motor seizures. The “major seizure” definition also included clusters of myoclonic or tonic seizures.

GW Pharmaceuticals has announced positive top-line results of the second randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 clinical trial of EPIDIOLEX® (cannabidiol or CBD) CV in the treatment of seizures associated with Dravet Syndrome. In this trial, EPIDIOLEX, when added to the patient’s current treatment, achieved the primary endpoint of reduction in convulsive seizures for both dose levels (10 mg/kg per day and 20 mg/kg per day) with high statistical significance compared to placebo.

FutureNeuro, a €13.6 million SFI Research Centre has been launched at RCSI, Dublin today. The Centre aims to translate breakthroughs in understanding of brain structure and function to transform the patient journey for people with neurological diseases.

A new research grant has been awarded to Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland under the 2017/2018 round of the Epilepsy Ireland Research Funding Scheme. This project will again open up new possibilities and most importantly has potential to deliver tangible benefits for patients with autoimmune epilepsy.

A new report by Trinity School of Nursing and Midwifery (Rising to the challenge: Epilepsy Specialist Nurses as leaders of service improvements and change, SENsE study) has again highlighted the importance of Epilepsy Specialist Nurses (ESNs) in five key areas of epilepsy care.

These include:

A new study on sodium valproate by two leading British academics reveals that patients should have been informed about the drug’s risks during pregnancy as far back as 1990.

Dr Carl Heneghan and Dr Jeffrey Aronson of the University Of Oxford have published a paper entitled “Sodium valproate: who knew what and when? Cumulative meta-analysis gives extra insights.”

The paper researches various sodium valproate studies in the UK and abroad from 1983 to 2014.