Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Program News and Events

A Neurology study found that psychiatric symptoms occur at higher rates during pregnancy and postpartum in women with epilepsy. Experts recommend that neurologists conduct routine assessments and treatment when the symptoms occur during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Drs. Juliet Knowles, John Huguenard and Michelle Monje led studies which demonstrated that activity-dependent myelin plasticity, which occurs in the setting of seizures, can promote further seizure progression. This is the first demonstration of maladaptive myelination: activity-dependent myelination that promotes a disease process.

In an ongoing multicenter NIH study of pregnancy outcomes in women with epilepsy, Dr. Meador and colleagues found that breastfeeding while taking antiseizure medications did not have any adverse effects on the child’s cognitive function at age 3 years old. This may be in part because the concentrations of antiseizure medications are much lower in these child than their mothers. Given the multiple known benefits of breastfeeding to the mother and child, Dr. Meador encourages women with epilepsy to breastfeed.

Toddlers whose mothers took certain epilepsy drugs during pregnancy are unlikely to have development delays, according to a new study led by Kimford Meador, professor of neurology and neurological sciences.

Congratulations to Juliet Knowles, MD, PhD, Instructor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences, the 2020 PERF Elterman Research Grant Recipient for her project "Targeting Aberrant Activity-Dependent Myelination in Absence Epilepsy".

A new study demonstrates that there are normal physiological responses to cognitive stimuli in non-lesional epileptic tissue unless there is ongoing spontaneous high-frequency oscillation. Josef Parvizi, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences, is quoted in this article.

More than 65 million people around the world are affected by epilepsy. Choosing from over 14,000 different treatment scenarios to decide which drugs might be best for a child or a loved one can be daunting. Robert Fisher, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine and director of the Stanford Epilepsy Center is the principal investigator of the AI epilepsy trial. The new trial’s goal is to help determine the precision of epilepsy treatment options incorporating many “real world” variables.

Gerald Grant, MD, Neurosurgery Division Chief, and pediatric epilepsy neurologists with the Packard Children’s Pediatric Epilepsy Center, gives kids with uncontrolled epileptic seizures a powerful option to explore when medications are not working by using the ROSA robot. Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital is the first hospital in Northern California to have ROSA.

Transient bursts of high-frequency electrical activity in epileptic brain tissue can impair cognition even when no seizure is occurring, Stanford scientists have found.

Brett’s cross-country bicycling trip from Santa Barbara to South Carolina ended abruptly, 1,000 miles short of its final destination. While crossing through Oklahoma, Brett fell, ending his dreams of completing a coast-to-coast charity ride, and nearly ending his life. Brett spent eight days in the ICU, where a team of trauma and brain injury specialists managed his inter-cranial pressure, blood pressure, temperature and seizures to minimize the cascade of secondary injuries that can occur after a traumatic brain injury.

The FDA has approved the use of an implanted device that releases periodic electrical discharges in the brain to counteract seizures in people with epilepsy. In an interview, neurologist Robert Fisher described the technology and Stanford’s role in testing the device.

John Huguenard and his team are learning what role electrical excitability of brain cells plays in epilepsy ­— and how we might someday control it.